A Stab in the Heartland

By David Clifford Grieser

Taking place across the Midwest’s heartland of America, this collection of short stories offers nuance to the darker aspects of human relationships. Told primarily from the intoxicating beginnings of lust before progressing toward love, the stories fluidly transform into stark realities rather than romantic ideals. Each story provides an intimate look at how commitment and affection can turn into disloyalty or even hatred. 

With subtle mystery and humor sprinkled throughout, readers will be fascinated and shocked at where these winding plots lead, both physically and psychologically. Though at times jarring, the stories ultimately highlight the complexity of bonds between people in both their beauty and brutality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889108320

David Clifford Grieser

David Clifford Grieser was reared by loving parents on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. He earned his bachelor’s degree at South Dakota State University and his master’s at the University of South Dakota. After teaching English and directing all speech activities at the secondary level, he joined public television to facilitate the use of instructional television in classrooms in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and ultimately became a trainer for an insurance company. Grieser is the author of Survival on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and currently is a freelance writer of his preferred medium: the short story.

Book preview

About the Author

David Clifford Grieser was reared by loving parents on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. He earned his bachelor’s degree at South Dakota State University and his master’s at the University of South Dakota. After teaching English and directing all speech activities at the secondary level, he joined public television to facilitate the use of instructional television in classrooms in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and ultimately became a trainer for an insurance company. Grieser is the author of Survival on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and currently is a freelance writer of his preferred medium: the short story.

Dedication

To Jude.

Copyright Information ©

David Clifford Grieser 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Grieser, David Clifford

A Stab in the Heartland

ISBN 9798889108313 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798889108320 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024900004

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

Thank you to everyone who influenced, supported, and motivated my writing to create this book.

Payload

Sara wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. After all, she was already engaged. And Gordon certainly didn’t feel the need to find another girlfriend. He was comfortable with the few he could call, sometimes with short notices. The two of them were graduate students in Business Administration. Unlike undergraduate classes, those for masters’ degrees were small, and their students had opportunities which at least afforded them probabilities that they would get to know one another by name, and at most, by addresses and phone numbers. It was little wonder, then, that Gordon and Sara first shared thoughts on balance sheets and later on bed sheets.

Working toward their MBAs, those two students had more in common than active libidos. They both had thirst for money.

Sara and Gordon were dedicated to their success. They spent hours developing problem-solving skills based upon actual Fortune 500 companies and establishing faux start-up ones to practice those skills in ways which could guide their own business decisions.

After classes they spent hours developing interpersonal and sexual skills which would guide their decision whether to share an apartment.

By the end of the fall semester, they found a one-bedroom apartment four blocks from campus. They notified existing landlords of their intentions to vacate the rooms, and Sara and Gordon began blissful cohabitation.

Phone calls between Sara and the man who thought he would be her husband had gone from infrequent to nearly nonexistent, and when he questioned the seriousness of their relationship, she replied, We need more time apart, and broke the engagement.

Gordon simply stopped calling the women he had dated.

We need to evaluate the risks we face with these companies, Sara told Gordon when they returned to classes.

Gordon argued that the risks should be considered on a continuum. We don’t necessarily have to eliminate them. Maybe we simply need to minimize those risks.

Being the detail-oriented individuals they had become, the two grad students applied the evaluation and minimization of risk to their personal lives: sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, bank accounts, buying groceries, restaurants, and entertainment.

You think we should marry one another? Sara asked.

Sure. Why not? Gordon answered. Would you keep your last name or change it to mine? Sara Mehr has a nice ring to it.

I don’t know. For a quarter of a century, I’ve been accustomed to the last name of Knight.

You could have a hyphenated name.

She retained her name when they eloped a month later. Just minimizing risks, she explained.

By the end of the spring semester both Gordon and Sara had earned their masters’ degrees in Business Administration, had traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, for job interviews, and had been offered positions there with life insurance companies, he at Principal and she at Nationwide.

Moving to Des Moines was the embodiment of the kind of life they sought. It meant money, lots of it. Gordon’s success at Principal grew from his ability to motivate employees to perform at their best, and Sara was rewarded for assisting Nationwide with identifying the company’s values and aligning business decisions with them.

After fourteen months of renting a loft in downtown Des Moines, they bought it, two bedrooms on the second floor overlooking the busy traffic on Ingersoll Avenue. They were considered good risks for credit. They bought new furniture. They leased new vehicles. They bought a gas grill for their deck. They paid cash for art for their new home.

It would be improbable that one employed by a life insurance company would not be aware of the benefits of life insurance, its ability to replace lost income in cases of death, in particular. Sara could not maintain her lifestyle with only her compensation, and Gordon needed her income in addition to his to retain the comfort to which they both had become accustomed. As a result, they bought life insurance from their respective companies, twenty-year term policies, each with a face-amount of one million dollars. Sara was the owner and payor for Gordon’s policy, and Gordon owned and paid for Sara’s. Should one of them die prematurely, the million dollars could be invested to provide the lost income.

There were other decisions, mostly economic, which they made. For example, they would not have children. They were too expensive. Are we that selfish? Gordon asked.

Without hesitating, Sara answered, Without a doubt.

Gordon acquired a taste for bourbon and kept a cabinet stocked well enough that he could enjoy a daily drink or two after returning from work.

Additional time which the two of them worked meant less time together and fewer opportunities to make love. How long had it been now, a month? They did not care. Dollars were more important.

If there had existed at least some common interest in something other than money and sex, or if they had agreed to develop one,