Concord Writers' Night Out 2019: An Anthology of Writers and Writing

By Concord Writers' Night Out

This is the second anthology of writing from the Concord Writers' Night Out group, part of the New Hampshire Writers' Project.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359943944

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Concord Writers' Night Out 2019: An Anthology of Writers and Writing

Concord Writers' Night Out: An Anthology of Writers and Writing

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In conjunction with the New Hampshire Writers' Project

Concord Writers’ Night Out 2019

An Anthology of Writers and Writing

in conjunction with the New Hampshire Writers' Project

The New Hampshire Writers’ Project (NHWP) supports the development of individual writers and encourages an audience for literature in our state. We are a nonprofit literary arts organization funded by our members as well as by organizations and businesses that support our region’s writers and literary heritage.

On the web at nhwritersproject.org

On Facebook at facebook.com/nhwritersproject

On Twitter at twitter.com/nhwritersproject

2019 Concord Writers’ Night Out Anthology Committee

Editor: Ian Rogers

Coordinator: Piper Tallis

Introduction: Cheryl Barnhart

Layout: Maria Fowler

Cover Photo: Valerie Carter

Print ISBN: 978-0-359-94397-5

eBook ISBN: 978-0-359-94394-4

All pieces included in this anthology are copyright their respective creators/owners. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission of the respective creator/owner. The editors of this publication have done their best to present correct information and the information in this publication is presented in good faith; however, no guarantees are given, and the editors disclaim any liability for unwanted results.

A Few Notes

The Concord Writers’ Night Out group is a loosely defined monthly meet up organized by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and coordinated by NHWP trustee Gary Devore. We meet at 7:00 p.m. at the Concord Books-A-Million on the first Monday of every month, though if you'd like to drop by you might want to email first to make sure we'll be there. See nhwritersproject.org/writers-night-out for more information.

In cases where a work is excerpted from a longer, previously published work, information on where readers can find it is listed.

Introduction

You may know that Concord is the capital of New Hampshire or that the fourteenth president of the United States, Franklin Pierce, lived here for part of his life. You might even know that the first American alarm clock was constructed in Concord in 1787 by Levi Hutchins (I’ll leave you to decide whether that last one is a good or a bad thing). But did you know that there is a diverse group of talented writers who meet regularly in Concord? It’s true!

Once a month, this group comes together in conjunction with the New Hampshire Writers’ Project for Writer’s Night Out. Every meeting is a little different. We often share our knowledge of writing events and opportunities happening all over New Hampshire. We also learn each other’s unique perspectives and styles as we share the different projects we’re working on.

As you meander through these pages you’ll see a reflection of the many styles that the Concord area writers bring to this anthology. Some works are nonfiction, and capture the challenges and joys of everyday life. There are moments of clarity, and choices made. In the end, we have to live with the impact of those choices.

Other authors use their unique imaginations to answer the question What if? They imagine whole worlds that lack the boundaries of ours. Their characters can do amazing things, yet they still have their own struggles and choices to make.

Whichever genres you prefer—reality, fantasy, or something else—this anthology contains a little bit for everyone. The following pages contain a mere sample of our work, and additional author information appears at the end so readers can find more from their favorite writers.

Concord has been a birthplace for so many great things. We hope you have fun imagining how it provided the seed of inspiration for the following works.

Cheryl Barnhart

November

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by cindy shea

We live among rolling fields fenced by stone walls and old sugar maple trees. In October the air shimmers with misty hues of red, orange, and gold. The air is crisp and clear, but still retains a certain warmth. Old logging roads and wooded paths beckon you along their winding way enticing you with what may be hidden just around the corner. Ducks and geese call to one another as they fly by on their way to warmer climates. Days are shorter and nights are cooler, making for perfect cooking weather, for this is harvest season and fresh food abounds. The daylight smells of fresh earth and dried leaves. In the evenings you may catch the hint of wood smoke in the air coming from a chimney or two as families sit by the fire chasing off the evening chill.

Just one month later the vision is drastically different. November brings shorter days, cooler temperatures, and that hint of snow in the air. The only leaves left on the trees are brown and dried. Forests reveal hidden stories that were once concealed by fresh green leaves. The skies are a cold steel gray most of the time, but even the sunny days do not bring much warmth. The only sound you hear is the howl of the wind, which can bite right through you.

If it wasn’t for Thanksgiving, November would be a very bleak month indeed. While it can snow here in November, it often just threatens to, spitting down a flake here or there almost as a tease to those hardy skiers. By now, most people have their homes winterized, wood stoves are going strong, and anything related to summer has been stowed away until next year.

What we eat and how we cook changes drastically. Outdoor grills are replaced with indoor crockpots. Fresh vine vegetables have been canned or frozen and replaced with heartier squashes and root vegetables. Hearty stews fill the home with savory scents that make the mouth water. The smell of fresh-baked bread brings memories of days gone by.

Instead of meandering down wooded paths and taking in the beautiful scenery of October, we now stay indoors, watch football, and keep a lookout for that ever-promised snow so winter sports can begin.

Despite November’s dreary appeal, it has its place on the seasonal calendar. We become so enamored with October that we might well forget that winter is imminent. November is here to remind us. She is stern and unforgiving, raw and cold, but there is beauty in her starkness. Because of her, we give ourselves permission to stay indoors wrapped in a warm blanket with a good book and a hot beverage.

As we come up to Thanksgiving and look for things to be thankful for, perhaps we should be thankful for the month of November. After a hectic summer cramming every outdoor activity possible into a few short months, November allows us to slow down, take a breath, and rest a while. It’s that deep inhale and exhale before the holiday season begins and the craziness jumps into full gear.

This seasonal break between summer and holidays doesn’t last long up here in the north. Give yourself permission to take a few moments to just breathe. Now is a great time to refresh yourself. It is also a great time to look at the world around us and appreciate it for what it is. Without seeing her dressed in her seasonal best, we should accept nature at her worst when all her scars are bared to us and she prepares to blanket herself in snow.

Lost Gloves, Found Values

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by jay haines

Standing in a large alcove with my back to the street this cold November afternoon, I take in the evidence of the building’s earlier affluent life, its small black and white tiles covering the granite vestibule with geometric patterns. Just inside the doorway are four old-fashioned mailboxes and a dozen new ones. Each original apartment has now become four. The door to the street-level store retains its original stenciling for Sarah’s Dressmaking Shop but now sells secondhand clothing and used furniture.

I’m brought back to the present by the sudden screech of brakes announcing the arrival of my bus. I sprint across the sidewalk to the opening door and scramble aboard, grateful for its warmth. From a look out the window I’m shocked to see my gloves on the vacated doorstep. As the bus accelerates through the changing light I know it’s too late to get off. The gloves become progressively smaller and my emotions take over: Frustration, from momentary carelessness caused by the bus’s sudden arrival. Embarrassment, because they are a recent gift from my parents. Regret, because they are really nice gloves: double-knit gray wool, leather palms, and lined inside.

To hop off at the next stop isn’t an option. I’m running late and need to get back to the office to turn in the money collected from loan payments.

Had I thought to reflect on things on the ride back, they would have been hard to reconcile. It was 1962, and just three months earlier I and another counselor at a private summer camp had guided six boys on a two-week whitewater canoe trip in northern Maine. Now, having blown off my freshman year of college, I’m out of school, working as an outside collector for a personal loan company and awaiting the arrival of my military draft notice.

Setting the stage for my forthcoming experience was my good fortune to have lived a socially privileged life. Born white, a child of parents well educated, dad professionally employed, mom a homemaker with four kids to raise. I attended a private Quaker school and thus avoided the undesirable city public system. We lived in a generous three-floor, five-bedroom home on a quiet street in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. From a Quaker education we learned that there was good in everybody, which is our spiritual connection to all people. We performed community service activities such as painting public buildings, volunteering at weekend work camps in what were at the time still referred to as Negro neighborhoods, and attending services in a Negro church. For the times, these were bold and enlightening experiences that I brought through the door the first day of my new job.

I had no idea how my world was about to change. My job title was Manager Trainee for a personal loan finance company. Tom, the manager and my boss, makes a point to announce that he is third-generation Irish, and proud of it. The office makes loans to all manner of lowlife that infest the surrounding neighborhoods, he says. When referring to their black customers and the black population in general, Tom makes constant use of the N word. This group, I am told, makes up a modest percentage of loans made; however, they dominate the delinquency payment report.

My daily morning routine will be to review the past-due loan list to find those with no payment for sixty or more days who are in in the same neighborhood. The Philadelphia public bus system is my means of transportation. This requires memorizing which numbered streets run north and south and which tree-named streets run east and west, a lesson to draw from for many years after.

However, the real lesson to come from this four-and-a-half-month job that opens my sheltered eyes is about poverty. The job made real to me what life is about for those who live in abject, hopeless poverty. This becomes a learned lesson from its constant inundation of my physical senses: smell (exhaust fumes, stale tobacco breath, apartments of steaming squalor), sight (tattered clothing, matted hair, missing teeth, unfocused eyes), hearing (mumbled words, foul curses, piercing street noise), touch (sticky banisters and doorknobs, lifeless handshakes, icy winds on exposed flesh), and taste (bile that rises in my throat in fetid air-filled apartments).

By the end of the first week I’m out the door each morning with a batch of fifteen to twenty loan cards. Borrowing money and not paying it back is difficult for my naive mind to grasp. By believing every excuse to not pay, Tom informs me, my collection performance is unacceptable. I need to get tougher and push back against excuses to earn the people’s respect. By returning every few weeks, nonpaying borrowers accept that I’m not going away, and reward my persistence with payments. My confidence level grows. From repeat visits acquaintances begin to offer light chatter and personal conversations. Thus, when a story about someone’s inability to make a payment seems genuine, I accept it, write on the card NAH for Not At Home, and move on. I feel it’s OK to occasionally make these unauthorized but personally gratifying choices.

It takes only a short time to feel at home with the job’s routines. Street locations, bus routes, available bathrooms, and where to stop for coffee to catch up with card notes and organize the cash in my pocket have all become automatic. One garage owner who gets to know me says, You know where it is, help yourself. Just don’t fall in. These and other little social connections make the otherwise dreary work doable. At one stop, when the woman opens the door, out comes the delicious smell of fresh-baked cookies. She always rewards my compliment with a payment and a cookie for the road. I soon learn that eye contact and a warm greeting invites conversation and trust.

The north section of the territory is the toughest, with block after block of brownstone structures, four or five stories up, and four or more apartments to a floor. Building numbers are often missing, so I search for one with a number, then count up or down, odd or even to reach the needed address. Front doors are never latched. I walk through the vestibule into the hallway when it hits. The smell is unbelievably awful, a mixture of raw garbage, stale air, urine, animal feces, and decaying animals, all baked in the building’s overwhelming heat.

After rechecking the card for floor number and apartment letter, up I go. Floor numbers are not marked so it takes a mental count of right turns made for each stairway climbed. To walk in the middle of each step is important because trash, garbage, and whatever else collects on the edges. I never again touch a bannister after witnessing a tenant urinate on one.

Always present is the constant ultra-loud noise of TV and radio volume, but what affects me the most are the arguments. In my home, with my family, I’ve