The Unfinished Business of Kildare Dobbs

By Kenneth L. Warner

The Unfinished Business of Kildare Dobbs is a short story collection of coming of age stories on a baby-boomer in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Stories of the Draft and not going. Wanted to leave home and staying. Love. Life. Drinking. And living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312926684

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The Unfinished Business of Kildare Dobbs

The Unfinished Business

Of Kildare Dobbs

By Kenneth L. Warner

An Irish Samurai Enterprises Book

Copyright © 2014, Kenneth L. Warner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-312-92668-4

Dedication

For Molly

and Dedicated to Mack (2002-2014)

True Companions

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my dogs, Mack and Lila for their companionship, to Emily Brasley, Editor of Canto Magazine for publishing several of these stories, and to Robin, John, Ashley and Paulina who fed me, quenched my thirst and listened to my bad my jokes while letting me work on this adventure on countless afternoons over 10 years in Café Cibon.

Thank you as well to my friend, Larissa Coe, who shot the cover photo. She is a truly talented artist. And thanks as well to the models for the cover shot: Nathanial Hall, Grant Bierton and my friend Paulina Swan.

Mostly, I thank Molly for her Love and Patience.

Preface

Writing this bit of Unfinished Business was started in January of 2001 on an old Remington Typewriter and typed on onionskin paper. It was finished at the Ice Flow, a small cottage on the shores of Fair Haven Bay off Lake Ontario in the summer of 2013 on a MacBook Pro. It took seemingly a lifetime to write but certainly a lifetime of technological changes.

Any comparison with any human living or dead is unintentional, undesirable and unfortunate for both. The stories here are meant to be enjoyed, and laughed at, and cried over. They are meant to be good stories. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Kenneth L. Warner

The Ice Flow, August 2013

Icarus ca. 1966

Old Volkswagens made the damndest sounds just before they shifted gears, in particular the ones with the automatic transmissions -- the ones that would putt-putt along like they were never going to make it. Almost whirring. Like the sound a playing card attached with a wooden clothespin makes as it flips through the spokes of a kid’s bicycle. Or like those red plastic propellers on those fragile blue and crimson balsa airplanes we had when we were kids.

Only Volkswagens are louder.

I always wondered about the tiny, helmeted, painted pilots of those aircraft, all tightlipped and wearing goggles, looking ahead unflinchingly, determined to make this flight different and pilot their plane to soar off into infinity, only to meet their destiny with the inevitable crash.

We wound one up one time especially tight with two long brown rubber bands for extra power. It was a really big one with two pilots -- one red, one blue. And, just before we let it fly out from the cliff called Devil’s Nose overlooking the lake, we set the middle on fire. It burned much faster than we imagined, but just before it became fully ablaze, the rubber bands snapped and for an instant, it became a majestic, unpowered glider that soared out over the calm lake water. It glided perfectly against the cloudless azure sky for just an instant -- then flared up toward the sun before plunging like a falling fireball into the cold water below.

There were no survivors.

The Sailor Paid Dearly

For his generation, there were two kinds of people – those who went to Woodstock, and those who almost did. So, when Kildare Dobbs told his mother that he had taken a job with the town highway department instead of returning to college, she wasn’t surprised.

After all, he really wasn’t that good at finishing anything.

He hadn’t gone to Woodstock. He hadn’t gone to Vietnam -- his draft lottery number was 283. He hadn’t kept his high school sweetheart, she married the star football player. And now, it looked like he wasn’t planning on finishing college either.

One thing he was good at finishing was a day’s work. So when the alarm clock buzzed at 3:00 a.m., he literally rolled out of bed onto the floor next to Mack, his golden retriever, found his wool socks that he had thrown under the nightstand and started getting ready for early morning shift as wing-man on the town’s giant green snowplow.

Across town, Charlie Dunning slid from beneath the heavy winter comforter and padded silently to the bathroom. Pulling the door quickly behind him to avoid squeaking the hinges, he felt in the darkness for the light. Working it slowly, he turned it on just right so as to quiet the click of the switch and then stood silently for a moment to listen for her snoring on the other side of the door. Satisfied that he did not wake her, he smiled into the mirror at his graying, but still full head of hair. His grin quickly disappeared as he heard her call.

Charlie, is that you? she said, as if it were a burglar stopping by in their bathroom for a shower and a shave.

What time is it? she asked. Is that 3:00 a.m.?

Yes Dear, he said. There was a big snow last night and I’ve got to get in early.

He stopped shaving to mouth the words in the mirror along with her as she said, "Why don’t you let the younger men take these early plow shifts?"

Yes Dear, he said.

Mrs. Charles Dunning had been saying the same thing to him for most of the twenty-eight years he had worked as part of the town’s snow crew.

The younger men, he thought, always the YOUNGER men. That woman has more whines than George’s Discount Liquor store. And he chuckled silently to himself at his joke.

I don’t know why you didn’t run for the Highway Superintendent’s job when you had the chance, she said. No one appreciates you, you know. When do you ever get a thanks or even a ‘how-de-do’ for keeping the roads clear in the middle of the storm?

But the storm’s over, Dear, he said, half-heartedly.

She ignored his remark and went on. You getting up at all hours of the night and my lying here with my bronchitis. Doc Ferguson said it’s chronic. I could suffocate in my own phlegm lying here alone while you breeze around town.

Yes Dear, he said.

Oh Please! he thought.

I’ll speak to them about it, he said.

And while you’re at it, why don’t you speak to that cousin of yours over to the glass plant? There’s another shift on and he’s got a real job with real hours.

Charlie decided not to shower and dressed more quickly now that he knew she was awake, silently listening to her lecture about other women’s husbands and how he was such a sucker and how nice guys like him always finished last.

His mind, though, drifted off to the freak storm of the evening before that had dropped so much snow on the roads even the plows were called off.  With four inches an hour coming down, the plows just couldn’t keep up. It had stopped now, and he wanted to get out there to clear what he could before the daybreak that would clog the snow-filled streets with traffic.

He bent over to kiss her good-bye and as he did she turned her face to the side so that the kiss barely brushed her cheek.

I’ve got germs, she said matter-of-factly. That’s all we’d need, you to get sick with me unable to get around like I used to.

Yes Dear, he said.

As Charlie closed the door behind him, he bristled at her last admonition.

And make sure you talk to your cousin today! Don’t get cold feet again!

It was hard trudging. The snow was wet and heavy and drifted across the sidewalk, so that by the time he made the six block walk to the metal pole barn that was the town garage he was breathing hard. In the weird yellow light of the mercury lamp he could see the outline of Kildare Dobbs, as he worked the wing on the big GMC dump truck that did winter duty as one of the town’s two snowplows.

Young college kid, he thought to himself shaking his head. Well you can’t learn everything in life from books.

Dobbs stepped down from the cab and began shoveling out around the gas pumps.  He barely looked up as Charlie approached.

Charlie looked at the way Dobbs shoveled, his lean body almost at one with the swing of the shovel – too much like his own son, he thought.

Cold enough for you? Dobbs said as he pounded the ice covering the pump lock with the wooden shovel handle.

Colder than a witch’s you-know-what, replied Charlie as he passed. He pulled the sliding door of the barn and scraped his bare knuckles on the frozen metal.

Damn! he said.

Charlie had been keeping the roads open in the town for twenty-eight winters. Twenty-eight years of icy, snow-filled mornings. Sometimes so cold that the snow crunched underfoot, sometimes mornings of wet snow as heavy as earth itself. This was Kildare Dobbs’ first winter but the two made a good team and Charlie liked his college boy helper.

Thought we had better start on Main Street, said Charlie. Take a pass down through town and turn out toward the hill. There won’t be as much there on account of the field next to the car lot, but it drifts real bad just past the cemetery up there and those people in that new development will be socked in real good. Mayor says we got to take care of those new voters up there. I suppose you forgot the flashlight. I gotta remember everything you college boys forget.

Dobbs smiled at the gentle ribbing. I already brought the big light, he