"What’s dat stuff on your face, mistuh? What is it?" Mark Cahill tried to pretend he was asleep. But the high-pitched young voice was penetrating, and persistent. His day had been filled with an early departure and a long, rough connecting flight that inc...
She blew in like an aggravated F5 tornado, shouted, "Don't you dare say a thing,” slammed the door shut and slung her purse across the room. It ricocheted away from my bottom-weary couch, cleared off the end table, then teetered briefly at the edge before...
Now, I'm not complaining, you understand, but these foreign dogs I’m living with are crazy. I call those house-hounds 'foreign' because one is part German Shepard, another is a mix of French poodle and something else, while the other is probably, more or...
The following meditation on the whoosification of modern baseball was sparked by a recent trip to a swanky, new, air-conditioned major league ballpark. Now don't get me wrong, all these ritzy new major league baseball parks are nice, I suppose, but playin...
We both want, an old-fashioned, wide-screen, Technicolor epic romance, a real Bogie and Bacall number. Instead, what we got that night was two old friends so smashed they started making out at a levee party. "What in the world were you dreaming about, la...
In the summer of 1970, an engaged, Jewish, student nurse and a wounded Vietnam vet from the south met in a New York VA hospital. This chapter marks the end of the beginning of their story. Mark Cahill’s body tensed at the familiar, rhythmic click of Gwen...
Outside, a scattering of forlorn leaves clung to the dark, wet limbs of trees bordering the deserted playground and half-empty parking lot behind the red brick apartment building. Cold, misty rain and swirling winds hastened the inevitable outcome of this...
They might be spending more money on dates and making love instead of making out, but some things, such as Johnny, never seemed to change. The imperative, female voice boomed down the hallway. “Gwen, pick up the phone, already! It’s your friend Robin.” G...
"Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news. Which do you want first?" Gwen had just walked into Mark's hospital room and was taking off her damp raincoat. "Since I'm still standing," she said, "give me the good news first." "I've wrangled a three day...
The families of the three men all endured fear, anxiety, and heartache while their loved ones were in the service. On Veterans Day, America will recognize those who lost their lives after answering their country's call to duty in the armed services. Many...
Minutes after her fiance’ stormed away, pouting over not getting his way during their time alone, she decided to test how a certain other man would act in a similar situation. Gwen Kaplan stood in the doorway of the familiar hospital room, studying the ma...
She had two lovers: the fiance’ she’d loved for years and wanted to marry, and this new man, the one she couldn’t stop seeing... Gwen Kaplan sat in one of the small, doorless cubicles that lined the back wall of the lobby of her all-female dorm. It might...
It occurred to Mark Cahill that things could be one hell of a lot worse. He was out of his room at the nearby Manhattan veterans’ hospital, sitting in a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue and staring across the cluttered table of a two-person booth into the...
Note: This fictionalized memoir is based on the author’s personal experience. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent. This was the longest time Mark had ever been apart from Gwen. There had been interesting women in his li...
"If only the good die young, that crew will live to a hundred.” This unflattering rumination came from one, William Jackson “Willie” Sinclair IV. The target of his jaundiced assessment was the Iota Fraternity test procurement committee. Its entire members...
