Length Doesn't Matter

By Xlibris US

Steve Kates, a native New Yorker, spent twenty-nine years as a senior advertising executive, and eleven years in Florida in various corporate positions. After retiring in 2000, he returned to his first love, writing. He was a film reviewer and feature article writer for the Boca Raton OBSERVER for ten years. More recently, Kates has been teaching Memoir and Short Story Writing at the Institute for Learning in Retirement (a non-profit adult education facility), where he also serves on the Board of Directors.

He lives with his wife, Linda, in Boca Raton, where they enjoy family, extensive traveling, tennis and art/antique collecting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499004526

Book preview

Length Doesn’t Matter

Eleven Short and Short Short Stories

Steve Kates

Copyright © 2014 by Steve Kates.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/12/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

I        Still Life

II       A Father’s Study

III      The Heart of the Matter

IV      Not My Best Day

V       The Walking Lady

VI      The One-Armed Dwarf and the One-Legged Tango Dancer

VII     A Fragile Friendship

VIII   In Grandma’s Eyes

IX      Love Story

X       A Not So Fond Farewell

XI      Accidents Will Happen

To Linda, who has always

had faith in my talents, no matter how great or trivial.

I

STILL LIFE

My persimmon is sitting before me on a delicate blue and white Ming platter, a fitting repository for this queen of fruits, developed in China over 3,000 years ago. As with Proust’s madeleines, it instantly takes me back to my childhood when, in late autumn, my mother would bring me, as a treat from the greengrocer’s, a luscious, ripe persimmon.

There is no other red like its orange crimson in the world. The skin is satiny smooth, and the ripe persimmon feels like a young woman’s breast, invitingly spongy yet muscular and firm. Its shape suggests a human heart.

Invading the flesh of the ripe persimmon is a sensitive task, for you must avoid the inside of the skin, which causes an unpleasant puckering sensation. But once beyond that peril, the yellowish pulpy flesh is incredibly sweet, and you eat it in quarters, following the natural internal conformation of the fruit.

The moist meat slides down your throat with ease, like a fresh oyster, slippery, cool and sensual. There are no seeds, and the experience is flawlessly smooth. In a few moments, this treasure is savored, swallowed, digested, then sadly gone. The persimmon is habit forming, and I am an addict.

II

A FATHER’S STUDY

I tiptoed into my father’s study. I swore I heard the old man say, You might have had the courtesy to knock, first.

How many times had that same scenario been reenacted, me walking in, and my father remonstrating my lack of manners.

Sorry, I murmured, surprising myself, since the room was empty. The study was dark, book-lined, claustrophobic, and the air was heavy with the residual smoke from my father’s Havana cigars. What light might have crept in was effectively blocked by thick floor to ceiling drapes, which covered the four windows, as though to protect a religious shrine from the prying eyes of infidel intruders.

I pictured my father, seated at the carved Carpathian elm partner’s desk, explaining that he would soon die. There’s nothing they can give me now except painkillers. I expect you’ll find me somewhat mellower over these next several months. Mellow? There was no narcotic in the world which could mellow my father even moderately, I had thought, suddenly feeling guilty at my insensitive reaction.

My father had been a commanding figure of authority for over twenty years, doling out punishment, criticism and humiliation. Ours had been a relationship based on mistrust, grudging but silent admiration, intellectual competitiveness, and a mutual devotion to my loving mother.

Just returned from the gravesite, I hastened to revisit my father’s study, leaving my mother upstairs for a few moments while I bade a private goodbye. It