A Letter in Vietnam (a short story)

A Letter in Vietnam


She said she laid back on her bed with a book opened to about its middle, reading some short story by Faulkner, and was influenced by how the character of the woman was described, of ill repute, and it made her think of her husband’s behavior, made her look at it, and thereafter, felt responsible to make a future decision. This was in the winter of 1971, and the war in Vietnam was steadily being reduced, soldiers being brought home, from over 500,000 troops to now 205,000. She wrote a letter to Sergeant Chick Evens, a letter of inquiry you might say, on what to do, in making the right decision in telling her husband of her situation, or more like: their situation. Her husband was Corporal Mac Washington, a tall, and large boned, broad shouldered Blackman from North Carolina, who loved to make love to every woman he ever saw, and ended up in Japan with a bent spine from some venereal disease, and overdoing it. He evidently spoke highly of Sergeant Evens in his letters to his Alabama bride, and therefore she was confining in him on what to do next.

Mrs. Brandy Washington
January 4, 1971 (Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam)


“Dear Sergeant Chick Evens, I write to you for some guidance in that I have a decision I must make. I do not know whom else to trust, and I don’t dare ask my husband for consultation in this matter—and so I have only you to turn to—perhaps because I do not have to face you, eye to eye, or shoulder to shoulder. Now here it is—I married my husband in 1968, while visiting a family member in North Carolina, I came up from Alabama. He was a man about to be drafted into the United States Army—come October, it was August at the time. He was at first, sent to Germany, Darmstadt, at the 15th Ordnance Battalion. He asked for me to join him, I was in Alabama at the time, and I couldn’t, and therefore, refused on the grounds, it was too much an ordeal.
“When he came home to the states for a month (a reroute to Vietnam), he went directly to North Carolina, and asked me to join him there, and I again refused, and remained with my family in Alabama, taking care of other responsibilities. And later on I knew he was in Vietnam, and he had told me of all those venereal diseases month by month he acquired, and the penicillin shots he was getting, along with other pharmaceuticals, he was frank and honest with me; perhaps too much so. Because of this now impending disease, he was somewhat crippled, bent when he walked, it was of course due to his insistence of having woman after woman, and now he is in Japan for some kind of treatment, all this you already know of course.
“He wants me to join him there, and assures me he has no longer any hidden diseases of that nature, that for the most part he is fine, and by the sound of his voice, all indications are that he is fine, but will he be safe for me?
“My mother once said, “Love is blind,” also she said, “You’re too close my dear to the forest to see the height and thickness of the woods.”
“And with that, I do not care to place myself in an awkward situation. On the other hand I have two children now, twin boys, they are not the sons of my husband’s, I wonder how he will take that, and they will be two-years old, come June.
“I wait patiently for your advice.”


3-12-2009• Based on Actual Events

The Attacked, the Assailant, and the Observer (about a killing in Minneopolis, 1983)

The Attacked, the Assailant, and the Observer

The Gem Bar on First Avenue/summer of 1983
(A Chick Evens Story)



He had went inside the bar about noon, everyone around the bar on barstools heard him bellyaching, and fighting with some fellow all afternoon long, until the hottest part of the day, 3:00 p.m., about a drug sale, the buyer, was Mexican, the seller a Blackman, and the buyers girlfriend, white, who wasn’t present.
“Where’s the stuff, did you sell it or use it up?” said the confronting Blackman, Leopold, standing next to the slim, shorter Mexican who sat drinking a beer staring into his glass waiting for Leopold to be quiet.
“In my car, I think?”
“What about the stuff your girlfriend took, did she sell it or use it?” said the confronter.
“Oh, she’s skipped town I’m afraid.”
“Where is she?” he asked again.
“Twice I got to tell you, she’s skip town. I think she’s headed for St. Cloud, she got the stuff and just went.”
They were both drug sellers, downtown Minneapolis, and the seller Leopold, had sold them a heap of drugs, some cocaine, some hash, some pot, some LSD, the works. And he was just sitting in the Gem bar drinking beer after beer, an all-afternoon event for him: suddenly, the Mexican pulls out a knife, and the black man pulls out a gun. The Blackman started shooting at the Mexican, and he crawled under some tables to the back door of he bar, finally finding the door slightly open, he pushed to open it wider, jumped up onto his feet, and ran like crazy down First Avenue.
The Mexican yelling for help, calling for the police, I had stepped out of the bar myself, watched him run like crazy, a man came up to me, “What’s going on?” he asked.
More shots are fired from the Blackman’s revolver; he ran right past me, the Mexican ran through a parking lot, about twenty-five yards from me.
The man next to me hit me in the elbow, “What’s going on,” he asks again.
“What does it look like, one man’s shooting at another, and the other is running, do I need to interpret that?”
“Na,” said the stranger. “But just tell me you don’t care to explain it, that’ll be good enough.”
I walked away, the Mexican was now laying on the sidewalk, he had been shot, it must had been ninety degrees out, and a minute later I heard an ambulance coming, and a police car.
“You know who shot him,” asks the police man.
“A tall Blackman, perhaps the same age as the Mexican, twenty-two or so.”
“Did you see it,” asked the officer.
“Some of it, why?”
“He got shot in the back, did you know that?”
“I figured as much, he was running away from the Blackman, I guess that is how it would end up.”
“Listen,” said the police officer, shaking his finger at me, “you saw and you didn’t see what you actually saw?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, that’s what I saw once it comes down to it.” I said, adding, “I really don’t care who shot him, they both were arguing in the Gem bar over drugs, everyone heard them.”
“Don’t you want the man who shot him to be caught?”
“Not necessarily,” I told the officer, as the ambulance to the Mexican away, and the police officer was explaining the situation to his boss over the walkie-talkie.
“My boss says to tell you to write it down.”
“Write what down? I told you I never saw anything that was anything, and especially nothing I could write down and swear to.”
“Poor Mexican,” said the police officer, as he got another phone call over his phone perhaps from one of the police officers inside the ambulance,
“He just died in the ambulance, twelve minutes ago, that is how long he lived, from the time they picked him up to now,” the police officer told me as he shot down his phone, looking at his watch.
Then the officer got another ring on his phone, “Yes sir,” he said, adding, “the observer says some fellow that he doesn’t know, shot the other person he doesn’t know, and he didn’t see the actual shooting in the first place, so who can prove who shot him, even if we catch him.”
The police officer looked at me, said, “It’s all right, my boss said, to tell you to go, we’ll no longer need your statement after all.”


Note: An actual event, that took place in the summer of 1983, a tinge modified for the written story, was in the newspapers, and the author wrote a poem about this story, called “First Avenue,” published in a Minneapolis, Newspaper during that same period. Written 2-27-2009•

Jeremiah Benton's Dream (a shrot story)

Jeremiah Benton’s Dream



Sister Carolyn asked her class, “I want you all to come up with a question concerning God, and let’s work on understanding it better, and together.” And she looked at Jeremiah Benton, who had his hand up, “Ok,” she said, “you go first, Jeremiah…:”
“Why does God send his prophets, instead of him coming in person…” asked Jeremiah Benton, to Sister Carolyn, and his classmates, at St. Louis Ecole, Elementary School, a little French Catholic school, built in 1888, in the center of downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, in the winter of 1957.
“That’s a good question,” said the nun, “I really don’t know, do you?”
“Oh yes,” replied the ten-year old boy.
“Well then,” said Sister Carolyn, “what is the answer?”
“He’s scary!” said the boy.
“Oh, but that will not do,” said the nun, “how would a little boy like you know he’s scary in the first place?” asked the nun.
“I had a dream last night; and God; He took me back and showed me the whole thing.” Said the boy, seriously.
“You aren’t lying, are you Jeremiah?” asked the nun.
“Oh no, I’m not kidding, it’s true.” Said Jeremiah, “cross my heart,” and the boy did just that, he made a sign across his heart.
“Well,” said the nun, “fine, then come up here in front of the class and tell us all of your marvelous dream, the very one God revealed to you concerning why He sends prophets instead of coming himself in person.”
The boy hesitated, then said to himself, ‘Oh well, I suppose,’ and stood up, walking up the isle, around a few desks, centered himself in the middle of the class, the teacher by her desk, her two hands, palms backwards leaning on the large wooden desk, and her sitting on the edge of it, the blackboard to her side.
“Go ahead” said the sister, “we’re all waiting.”
The class was stone-still, and Jeremiah was standing trying to figure out how to start his story, he hadn’t planed on sharing it, but here he was nonetheless, then he said with an outburst,

“Once…upon a time:

“As God was taking me in his boat, while in my dream, taking me to some far-off land, he called ‘The City of Adam,’ he said ‘A prophet is a person that gives my people warnings, things I points out that anger me, Elijah was one of those people, I even stopped the rain for him to prove a point to the people he brought my message to.’ Next I asked God: why don’t you just do it yourself, and nobody will get confused on your orders. He gave me a ‘hum…’ one of those things, not sure what it meant at the time, and then said, ‘I don’t want people to get confused, but there is only one God you know.’ And I said, I know that, but people get confused. And He did a ‘hum…mm,’ on that also, a second time.
“I asked him: when did all this secret stuff start, by sending the prophets do his job!” (The nun looked at Jeremiah and frowned at that statement; then a classmate yelled ‘Abraham, he was the first prophet. ‘No’’ said another student, it was ‘Adam’ he was the first one.’)

“Anyhow,” continued the boy, “I was in the boat with God, and he went to this city called “The City of Adam,” by the Jordan River, and He said to me ‘It happened here Jeremiah, in those far-off days, prior to the Great Flood, I came down to talk to my people…”

(Jeremiah now tells the story in his own words, while his classmates are double focused on him, not one peep, or noise in the whole classroom, and even the nun, is anxiously waiting, almost holding her breath):

“God said He was his own first prophet, but when He came to talk to his people, when He spoke, and when people saw him, He shook the earth, as if it was an egg on the head of a needle, and people got scared, and his voice echoed from one side of the earth, through the earth to the other side, people ran and hid, thinking there was going to be an earthquake, it made the earth tremble, and when God’s face showed in the sky, it blocked out the sun, and it was all you could see, and the people dug holes in ground to hide, they trembled in fear. And God said, ‘It is just Me, your creator, why do you tremble?’ And the people yelled, ‘Because you are too awesome for us to behold,’ and some even died of a heart attacks, then God said, ‘I will promise you, I’ll send my prophets in my place, so I do not scare you.’ And the people were pleased.”

Sister Carolyn now looked at young Jeremiah—spellbound, “What a dream,” she said, adding, “You must tell us of your next one.”

2-17-2009 (written while having lunch at the Wong café, in Lima, Peru)

The Old Lady and the Imps (a short story)

The Old Lady and the Imps
(or, ‘Festival of Death’)






“Away”! Cried the lofty one, to Marlene LLosa, he was the angel of death, and he came with several demonic imps.
“Those without souls are mine,” he stipulated.
A wild mournful expression passed her lips. Her husband, Edilberto was dying in bed, he should, according to the doctors, been dead hours ago, he looked at her, and her at him, and she sank down to her knees by the bed, hands over her eyes.
“Those without souls are mine,” murmured Death, in its black robe, and the imps cried, “Feed us were hungry,” and she did.
“I expected,” said Marlene, looking at her husband, and a peripheral view of the Black Angel of Death, “I expected an angel of hope and joy, not this you, who brings only sorrow, and your array of little demonic beings.”
He did not answer her back; he just looked at her with a blank expression.
“Edilberto!” cried the angel of death yelled, “The dead is thine!” He did not dispute this, he simply remained quiet and in suspense, thereafter.
“What does that mean,” asked Marlene, looking at her husband, directing the question to him, but he didn’t answer her.
Strange she thought, perhaps this is all fantasy, an illusion, betwixt, the near to dead face of her husband, appeared indifferent, near depression, anxiety, forlorn, but resigned to his fate.
“So you were waiting for a creature of hope, were you?” said the angel of death, adding (as the little imps danced around in circles laughing, keep death entertained), “Will, you be silent to your wife on your death bed?” the Dark Angel elaborated to Edilberto. He did not respond again.
“I shall call; bid the dead to speak on your behalf, why hope is gone, as soon will be joy?” Said the Dark Angel.
“Leave us,” said Marlene, “go!”
“And what shall be thy token between you two?” asked the Dark Angel.
“I will keep a lock of his hair, until I die, to remember him by, that we shall meet again,” and right then and there she cut a lock off, and put it in her palm, closed her hand making a fist, with her other hand, she held his. And then the angel of death laughed, as did his companions, even Edilberto, seemed to show a light impression of humor on his face, as if the ceremony she just did was silly, hopeless.
Said Marlene, with quivering lips, “You too, you both laugh, you’ve been a good husband, and I’ve been a good wife for fifty-years, and you laugh with the angel of death.”
She then stood up, walked to the door, hearing some noise in the hallway, and there were several demonic beings there, waiting, imps and fiends and devils and demigods from hell.
“What are you all waiting here for?” she asked kindly.
“For him,” a voice said, “to pass away, to die, oh yes, to die, and die quickly, so we can take him to ‘The Festival of Death! And have merriment”’
A taint of insanity appeared to shape her husband’s face, he sat up, on his bed, quiet, and utterly free from expression—just a stare. He looked about, harmless, unaffected by the demonic beings all about.
“Soon,” he said, “I will be a corpse. There are two kinds of beings born on this planet Marlene, the pre Adamic, without souls, and those born under the shadow of Adam, with souls. Between these two, there are no friendships, nor kindred spirits, in one sense it is pretense, he can imagine God in His glory, but that is all he cannot feel him, it is like having a blank piece of paper. He is born indifferent. We have fooled the public for nearly 8000-years. I was born under the shadow of affliction, without a soul. I married you, and I will never know why, for you have a soul.
“The Great Funeral, is the same as the Great Flood, it killed next to all soulless ancestors, and as years went on, so did the Festival of Death, celebrating that event in that God did not kill all of us. This is why those folks in the hallway are waiting; it is their turn to attend one. There is no negotiating in this disdainful situation, it is as it is.”
“Should I hold a funeral for you?” she cried, still holding the lock of hair in her hands, and again on her knees, holding his hand.
She raised her eyes, “But you even went to Church with me?”
Before he could answer that statement-question, Agaliarept, the Henchman from hell appeared in the room (untimely as it was, and intrusive, Agaliarept was always associated with the dead, but normally he arrived after the death had taken place, and tagged along to enjoy the festival. All were hushed upon his arrival.
“The Festival has started; he should be dead by now, what is the problem? Why does he live?” asked Agaliarept.
“Perhaps,” said the angel of death, because his wife has a soul, and she is so close to him, and will not move.”
Slowly, feeble and heavily he fell back under his covers on the bed, her hand in his, the lock of hair in her other hand.
“She’ll get tired soon,” said Agaliarept with a sneer, “and when she does, he will die, and you two (he looked at a imp, and a guard from hell named Gwen) grab his inners, pull him like a rag-doll out of this room, and be done with it.”

To Agaliarept, this was not a satisfactory situation, and he could not take ownership of the spirit of this man neither—at best it was a momentary dilemma, so he felt, fixable, but time consuming: thus, he dare not grab onto this man when it was so close to the soul of a Godly woman, and there she sat, and there he lay, and there they both died, hand in hand, and both buried, hand in hand, in the same tomb, by each other, hands unmoved, as the moonbeams shine over their grave, and a guard from the angel of death sat with his Imp friend for company, waiting for them to be separated, deep down in their quiet tomb.

2-17-2009

San Francisco Hotel Sweeper (1968, a short story)

San Francisco Hotel Sweeper


Those mornings I’d walk the streets of San Francisco, somewhat unsure of what I’d find, looking for work, and then as the morning progressed into day, and near noon, it would turn about with producing a cool warm summer air, a fresh breeze. I’d walk by this certain hotel, it looked to be at one time, a grand hotel of sorts, now a bit warn, and more on the dim side of its life, up and own, and around its frame you could see its age, its name was evidently well known, still at a certain highbrow level, it was a landmark, of sorts and sweeping the sidewalk each morning, appeared a certain bum like character, in shabby overalls, unshaven, thin looking, not too tall, half his teeth in his head were missing, his fingers a slight bent, a kind natured person, just sweeping away, as if he had no cares in the world, as jolly as could be, as if he had a secret and only he knew it, as if the Golden Fleece itself, I stopped and talked to him a number of times, he said he had been doing that job, sweeping, and cleaning out the furnace, and putting in light fixtures in the basement, and so forth, going on fourteen-years. I couldn’t believe it. And he said, and said it humble, and gratefully, and with pride,
“I get to sleep down by the furnace, it’s warm there, I like it there, and it’s private.”
And he smiled with a funny kind of grin, as if he had swallowed a gold fish, I mean, he was happy with his simple life, and simple it was, and I thought at the time, how kind it was for the hotel to put this poor soul in a bed and give him a roof over his head and a warm spot to warm his feet, and not charge him a dime, and as a result, only expect him to do an hours worth of work, if that.

I saw him off and on, as I previously mentioned, nodded my head off and on when I saw him, and passed him by. He’d step clear of me, and face the street, like an old soldier, standing at attention, as if I was an officer, a General. Always smiling, never displeased, a merry old soul I always figured. Matter of fact, I enjoyed walking down the street, and a few times, if it was morning, and I was down in that area, I’d purposely walk by the hotel, hoping he’d be out, and I could say hello, and more often than not he was. A few times he was going in, or just coming out of the side door of the hotel, but no matter what, if he got a glimpse of me, he’d smile, wave.
‘What makes a man like that,’ I thought at the time. Most people don’t smile, and surely not to strangers. But he wasn’t like most people, he was different. A bum I used to say to myself, he’s just an old bum, no more, and I thought I was being kind to even talk to him, and I was perhaps more bum than he, I had no job, I was twenty-years old, a Midwestern boy, far from home. Yet I told myself, don’t make any judgments, he perhaps had a hard life. He was, or so it appeared that he was in his late sixties, or early seventies, if I remember right, that’s what I thought, didn’t know at that particular moment, told myself he was, back in 1968.

As I was about to say, I walked by him, and he would be waiting, standing aside as if he was my chauffeur. I liked him. Anyhow I’d kept walking looking for work, knocking on doors, listening to the sounds of the street; the tires going by, I like such sounds, the sounds of birds, the horns of cars, and so forth. Then one day, a few months down the road, I picked up a newspaper, and found out he had died. Just up and died, he was sixty-six years old that was a ripe old age I guess, back then. But what startled me, what really fascinated me above all was not that, although it was sad he had died, and perhaps not of a real old, old age—I even took a closer look at the paper, saw his face, affirmed it was the same person—it read and reread it, it said,
“(so and so)…leaves $250,000-dollars to the hotel in his will.”
‘If that don’t beat all,’ I told myself.
I tell you, you just do not know a thing about other people. Perhaps my first lesson in absolute misjudging, and I never called a bum a bum again: don’t judge the person because he looks the way he looks.
I was now proud to have known him, I wonder way, perchance could it be the money he left to the hotel. The hotel was most gratified, and seemed sincere that the old fellow passed on. And by the looks of the hotel, it needs every penny of it to update it. As I write this out, forty years have passed, and $250,000-dollars then, would possibly be equal to four times that amount, figuring it doubles every ten years. Something like that, thus, it would be like receiving a million dollars today, for renovation purposes, if not more.


Originally written in the summer months of 2008, and reedited and modified, in the winter months, of 2009.

Mothers and Sons (a short story/Flash Fiction)

Mothers and Sons


I could end this story with a half to whole sentence, “Sentimental people get used… (or, overlooked)!” No examples needed. But someone has to give account, that it had been that way. Theodore Franks, had a passion for poetry, while never slaked and he was grateful to his mother for supping his passion during his formative years in this art.
While for others, people thought he was not of sound mind, a bit strange to sit in his attic room and write poem after poem after poem, therefore, he never really sought advice, after knowing how they felt, and it really made no difference where he was.
Theodore Franks’ imagination was both stirring and forever going in various directions: from the common to the not so practical, sum total, never ending. A few times in those formative years, he’d read his poetry to his mother, and she was always pleased to listen, reinforcing him to continue his love and art for his passion.
Theodore’s mind imagined he’d someday be a great poet, he pictured it, strange and bizarre as it may have sounded to the neighborhood gang he hung around with, for lack of anyone else to hang around with. Nonetheless, his writings became masterful and beautiful poetry. When he got older, old enough to travel the world, and to go to college, and a time in the military, and to a war, he had more to write about, and wrote thirteen-books on poetry on all his experiences, and for the most part, in all he did, he minded his own business.

Now knowing how war had been, remembering his earlier days, married to the wrong women, creating life to self-centered, children, he retired as a poet laureate, a sought after dream. And not having much to do continue to write his poetry, now at sixty-two years old. He had written poetry for some fifty-years, a half century.
In all that he had done in life, his poetry never interfered with his responsibilities, and he had written his first poem at twelve-years old, in his bedroom attic, looking out the side window, as the sun seeped into his lap, in patches. So it could be said, the undertaking that started so long ago, had been both proud and smugly pleasing to him.
But what was difficult for him was writing a poetry book on the grieving process of his mother, who had died some five-years prior.
It was good poetry, but it was like poison to him, to write it, and reedit it. Matter-of-fact, as he edited it, he now could feel all of that pain he had initially went through, when he was going through the grieving process, some years past. He felt as if he had been thrown into a tree of hard pine needles, crushed to the ground by the hoofs of wild horse, dust thrown into his face, splinters being pulled out of his forehead. He felt he was struck by lightening, that he was whipped by a javelin.
He wanted to climb a fence, jump over it and find safety, rest under the sun, understand death, and then burn down its bridge, if only he had kerosene, he might have tried something on that order.
To him, the road of death, was a road that went off somewhere along its winding path to the left side of life, leaving the living. A road with no trees, or roof top.

Now in old age, he had become all he wanted to become, could become, and as he walked along the high fence of Central Park, in New York City, he fell against a tree truck,
“You want that I should read it again?” he asked his mother.
“You want to hear it?” he exclaimed.
“Come on closer,” he told her.
“No, I don’t wish to write anymore, I wrote all I needed to write I suppose, I know I had a lot to say.”
“But mom—“
Then after a while, he fell completely to sleep, he had been dreaming, talking in his half-sleep, feeling hollow and happy.

“What?” he said to someone who woke him up.
“You should move on, this isn’t a hotel, grandpa,” said the police officer.
He nodded his head ‘ok.’
The old man stood up and started walking back to his apartment, depressed and gloomily, still alongside the high iron fence of Central Park.
His chest started to get tight, and his throat started closing up on him, to the point he was choking, and holding his chest, losing balance all at the same time.
“Not yet,” he said, “No,” he added, all three words came out in a hoarse voice, someone saw and heard him, a man in his early thirties. Said, “What’s wrong mister?” but Franks could not respond. Then the man said again, “What can I do for you?”
“Go!...” was all Franks could get out of his mouth, so the man left, walked down the sidewalk, perhaps twenty-five feet, stopped a lady, said, “Over there I tried to help the old man, but he insulted me, see the one holding his chest, he told me to go…!”
“He looks in trouble,” said the woman, in her mid forties.
“Well, you go help him then,” responded the man, and started to leave abruptly, overhearing the woman say:
“I really got to go home.”
Two kids, one male about fifteen years old, and his sister, perhaps seventeen, saw what was going on, the boy started to walk towards the man.
“Look,” he told his sister, “his body’s shaking, and his face is turning colors!”
“No,” said the girl, pulling him back one of his pants belt loops “he’s holding his breath, just wants to get attention, then ask for money so he can go get drunk, they do it all the time, around here.”
“All right,” said the boy, “let’s go get a burger then…!”

2-16-2009 (FF/Flash Fiction)

The Mother of an Urn (a Short Story on Death)

The Mother of an Urn




When his mother (Teresa Gunderson) died he was fifty-five years old, and her ashes were put into a wooden urn, with a cross on it, and a butterfly, she liked butterflies that’s why he specifically picked it out.
His brother, Mick Gunderson, thought they’d have a wake, of sorts, small just for the family, and Mick did all the coordinating, and calling up relatives (to include allowing his brother’s wife Delia, to attend in his place if she wished and bring the urn), and so forth, while Lee (the younger brother), insured everything was paid for, and collected what little money his mother left from her bank account, and insurance policies and so forth, enough for the urn, and wake, with a few dollars left over, but not much.
Well, when the time came for the wake, everyone showed up but Lee, for whatever reasons they were, he did not give to the family members, to include his brother.
The urn was set between two vases of flowers, and on a platform, with a podium for those who wanted to give an elegy, and Mick Gunderson gave his elegy, and his older daughter Sharma, the oldest of the nieces, gave her sentiments, as Teresa Gunderson’s brother Wally, and her several sisters sat in chairs just below the platform, asking where, and why Lee had not shown up (his wife informing him of the light conversations concerning his nonappearance, after her return home from the wake). The elder niece Sharma, noticed this also, and brought it up to her father’s attention. And the wake continued unabated.
As time went by, family members asked—if the the younger brother Lee, whom had the urn in his home, wanted to throw the ashes of his mother into the river, and be done with it, as his mother had said to do, but more in jest, than seriousness.
“No,” said Lee, adding: he couldn’t.
“Let me do it then,” said one of the family members, “I see you have it right in the middle of your living room, like a shrine.”
Later on, Sharma said to her father,
“What’s the sense of my uncle having those dead ashes of grandma in the house anyway?”
Whereupon a month later the older brother, Mick told his younger brother Lee, what his daughter had said, Lee took a slight offense to it but left it alone, knowing they knew little about anything in life other than what their immediate environment provided for them, in their conservative city of the Midwest.
After a long while, a year or so, another family member brought the subject up again, this time it was the daughter of Sherrill, the younger niece to Lee, and sister to Sharma, her seventeen year old daughter Carmella, mentioned to her grandfather, about her great uncle, saying,
“Why does my great uncle, keep ashes of a dead person in the house, how sick that is?”
The Grandfather, Mick Gunderson, told his younger brother of his granddaughter’s remark, perhaps a rhetorical question.
“She doesn’t know much does she,” the younger brother said, adding, “if she had done any living, or traveling, she’d understand other cultures, that there are different ways of life, of thinking, she would understand this is not so uncommon, among the other two-hundred countries that surround the United States of America, and therefore, it wouldn’t seem so unusual, or odd, or sick, they keep them in many countries in their houses, such as in Asia, and East Europe in particular—I’ve seen them myself, matter of fact, they keep the bones of the relatives out in the open, on shelves, in Cambodia, in a person’s backyard. Perhaps she thinks she’s too above everybody else, or she lives in box, all tightly bound that says: USA only.”
The older brother didn’t say a word, what could he say, he, himself was confused on the issue, and did little traveling outside of the United States, nor got involved with other countries, or cultures to weigh his brother’s statement, and Lee didn’t give him the reason why he did what he did, feeling it was his business, and no one else’s, and didn’t think it was such a big deal, or worthy of a long explanation, especially coming the mouths of arrogance.

Another year had passed by, then Lee decided to move, was about to move to South America, from Minnesota, his wife being Latin American, she had now lived in the United States going on six-years. During the process of selling his furniture, the issue of his mother’s urn came up again, during a visit,
“Why?” said Carmella, then added, “Look mom, my great uncle still has my Great Grandmother’s ashes,” and gave a horrifying look on her face, as she looked upon them.
Lee paid her little attention, and walked away as soon as she ended her sentence, and made her face to show her mother her disgust, and he went back to take care of business. She had said it in the sly, and didn’t realize he overheard her.

Soon after, Lee moved to South America and of course, brought his mother’s urn with the ashes in it, with him, right onto the airplane, and right on his lap.
A year after that, Lee’s brother Mick, brought up the issue over the phone, saying,
“You still got mom’s ashes?”
“For god’s sake,” Lee emphatically said, “it’s none of your business, you never wanted them in the first place, and I asked you.”
The older brother thought on this, like his two daughters thought, as they talked this issue over (a while back, prior to this phone call), for they had said, “What kind of man will not go to his mother’s wake, but keep her ashes as if they were sacred?”
One voice among the four had said this to all the rest.
The older niece, Sharma had said, “I bet grandma would like to rise from her grave and damn him!”
But then the brother had calmed down, told his two daughters, and granddaughter, “Its best left alone, we don’t know the whole of it.”
It was during this time, that Mick called Lee up, as I had just mentioned, and during that conversation, asked him kindly,
“Why is it brother you keep her ashes and never went to her wake, I ask you out of love, not scorn or judgment, and because the subject has come up in my family surroundings.”
“Because,” he said, “it’s my mother, its really nobody else’s business, but perhaps it is yours somewhat. You see, she was so dear to me, and she is so much dearer now to me, and I could not think of her being gone, thrown into a river, or left idle in a cemetery, where all those who said they loved her would never visit her, only left for the birds to flyover, and dogs to run by—perhaps urinate on her grave stone, flowers to grow around her and nobody to put them on her grave. Grandpa died 19-years ago, have you ever visited him (the brother said ‘no’), see what I mean. Now she will be with me and in a way, she never left. Had I gone to the wake I would have been sadder, this way, I will never be quite that sad. I know people talk against me, and say all sorts of unjust things, but I can say now I always had a mother.”
“That’s true,” his brother said.
And for the nieces they still continued to say, “What kind of uncle do we have?”

1-15-2009 (on the Roof, Lima, Peru)