I have a very short poem published on the blog Ephemeral Elegies: The Poetry of Emotion. The piece is part of a new full-length collection entitled The Truth I Must Invent.
Author Archives: Francis DiClemente
Short Story Sunday
I am in the process of moving from an apartment unit to a small ranch house in Syracuse. As such, I’ve been going through plastic totes, digging up old manuscripts. And this has inspired me to search through my digital archives, the literary treasure (or trash) I have collected over the years and stored on my computer and external hard drives.
I decided I would start posting some previously published short stories. Pull them up on the computer, do a quick edit in Word and re-release them on my blog. I’ll try to post one every Sunday for a number of weeks.
This first one is a flash fiction piece entitled “Slices.” It was published by Emerge Literary Journal in the summer of 2013. Although the story is set in Toledo, Ohio, a Famous Ray’s Pizza shop in a sunbaked shopping plaza on Bell Road in Phoenix, Arizona, served as the inspiration. I used to go there for slices when I resided in the Valley of the Sun from 1998 until 2006. The owners were transplanted New Yorkers, and I loved seeing Yankee pennants and New York-themed photos scattered throughout.
Famous Ray’s Pizza in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo by Jackie Mercandetti.
Fiction is not my primary genre, and I don’t know if this is a good short story or not. However, what I love about the story is that the character of Hilde came to me with her authentic voice, demanding to be released. I did not write this story, but merely served as a portal for Hilde to come into existence.
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“Slices”
Hilde wears her jeans low on her hips, letting her love handles fold over. She doesn’t care. She knows what men want. She knows they don’t need slim hips and flat tummies to get off.
And she’s willing to let them use her body for a few minutes at a time. But they have to pay; they all pay. She doesn’t give away shit for free.
She’s eating a slice of mushroom pizza at Ralph’s Italian Pizzeria on Reynolds Road in Toledo, Ohio. She’s sipping a Coke and staring at a black and white photo of Al’s great-grandparents hanging above the counter. The place is called Ralph’s, but Al is the owner; his father was Ralph.
Hilde needs to finish eating and pick up her son Carson at school. He’s in second grade. She comes to the pizzeria every day after working at her house, which is located just down the road off Airport Highway. She looks forward to eating slices of pizza after she finishes for the day, like it’s a reward for spending all the time on her back, letting men do what they need to do.
She likes the satisfaction of eating food paid for with money earned through her body. She knows God didn’t give her much, but she has smarts and her body works in all the right places. And the men find her. She doesn’t need to advertise on Craigslist or in the back pages of weekly newspapers.
She earns enough to have a nice house and provide for her son. She’s happy. She can’t complain. She’d rather fuck every day than be one of those snotty bitches carting kids to daycare in a Lexus, putting on makeup at a stoplight and teasing their hair so their pervert boss may give them a promotion.
She watches as Al shoves a Sicilian pizza into the oven. The phone rings and he answers it. At this time of day, he starts getting early dinner orders.
“Who?” he barks into the receiver. “Who you looking for? Hilde … no she ain’t here and don’t call back.” He hangs up the phone and steps out from the counter. He points at Hilde with his thick right index finger.
“Goddammit, Hilde, what did I tell you? I don’t care what you do with your life or how you make your money, but don’t give your clients my number. I mean it.”
Hilde takes another sip of her Coke. “Yes, Al, sorry, Al, you’re right, Al.”
“I fuckin’ mean it. I’m not running a whorehouse.”
“All right. I get it. But I didn’t give out your number.”
“Don’t you have a cell phone for Christ’s sake?”
“Yeah, but word gets around that I stop here after …”
“Yeah,” Al says as he walks back behind the counter. “They want another kind of pie.”
“Don’t be gross, Al.”
“Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Well, I can’t help it if people call looking for me.”
“Yes you can. Stop making it so obvious. If it happens again, I won’t serve you.”
“Come on, Al, don’t be like that. We’re buds aren’t we?”
“No we’re not. Look I have no problem with you, just don’t make things hard on me.”
“I gotta go,” Hilde says. She takes the last bite of her crust, opens the top of her soda cup and swallows some crushed ice. She wipes the crumbs she made off the table and onto her paper plate, and then stands up and tosses the plate and her soda into the garbage. She walks to the door and with her back to the counter says, “I’ll see you, Al. Watch that blood pressure.”
“Watch your ass,” Al says. “It’s getting big enough.”
Hilde opens the door and looks back at Al. “Yup, and I like it. It means more money for me and more slices for you to sell.”
“Get the fuck outta here,” Al says. He shakes his head and smiles at her.
“See you tomorrow,” Hilde says and goes outside.
Al turns to his sister, Ann Marie, who is standing behind the counter and making trays of antipasto. “Can you get over that girl? She comes in for two slices every day after she finishes screwing guys for money.”
Ann Marie lifts her head from the prosciutto, provolone cheese and assorted olives spread out on the tray and says, “Well, a girl’s gotta eat, doesn’t she?”
Purging Paperwork
Here are some remnants from the second draft edit of my work-in-progress memoir.
I’m in the process of moving, and it felt good to purge these pages from my “working” tote. I’m taking a little break from the project in hopes I can go from a “shitty” first draft to a “not so shitty” second draft to a “totally mediocre” third draft—and down the line until I arrive at “somewhere near decent.” I’m afraid that could take me some time. But I will persist.
Searching for Christopher
Pick your cliche—a “shot in the dark” or a “needle in a haystack.” I have no false hope here. I don’t expect this post will result in useful information about a missing Central New York teenager. But I saw this flyer posted on a corkboard inside Marshall Square Mall in Syracuse, and the child’s smiling face and wavy hair evoked pity in the form of a gut punch.
Missing teenager Christopher Pierce.
The paper displayed photos and biographical data for 14-year-old Christopher Pierce of Theresa, New York, in Jefferson County. He stands about five feet nine inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds. He was last seen on Nov. 1 at 550 Harrison Street—a medical complex near Interstate 81 in Syracuse.
I can’t imagine the horror his parents are enduring, replaying their worst fears as more time passes and he fails to appear.
If anyone has information, they can call the Syracuse Police Missing Person Unit at 315-442-5233.
I also couldn’t help wondering what type of kid Christopher is. Who is his favorite musical artist? Does he play sports? Does he ride dirt bikes or go snowmobiling in the Tug Hill plateau? Does he have siblings? What are his favorite pizza toppings? All the mundane little details that add up to a life. And in a case like this, good thoughts and prayers prove futile. They can’t bring the kid home to his parents. But a few aimless prayers also won’t cause any damage.
What Does it Mean to be Successful?
While on location at the Whitman School of Management at SU for a video shoot yesterday, I spotted this easel pad with some bullet points around the topic, “What does it mean to be successful?” I imagined a group of young entrepreneurs huddled in a brainstorming session throwing out ideas, prompted by their professor. It’s a good question to spark personal reflection. I think “leaving world better place” is the most important goal to pursue. I think if you can manage that, you may achieve all of the other goals on the list.
What does it mean to be successful?
Mawkish Monday Poem
Here’s a short poem I wrote. I know it’s corny, but I like the sentiment it expresses. And I’m posting it today because of the Monday theme.
Wish on a Monday Morning
For the week ahead—
May kindness flourish.
May peace reign.
May the children
Have a reason to smile
When they greet
The morning sun.
Real Bedford Falls Doc Airs on WXXI
For friends in the Rochester, New York, area, our Emmy-winning documentary, The Real Bedford Falls: It’s a Wonderful Life, airs Thursday, Oct. 20 at 9:30 p.m. on WXXI.
Photo by Stu Lisson.
The film was produced by Honest Engine Films and distributed by American Public Television and Virgil Films. It’s also available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. Tis the season for George Bailey and Mary Hatch!
The End of the Weekend
Am I the only one who feels the actual weekend never lives up to the promise or anticipation of the weekend? In no time you go from the Thursday night high to the Sunday afternoon doldrums. Then a new week and back to work.
A couple of poems on the subject:
Weekend
Another Saturday night
in a lifetime of Saturday nights,
leading to a succession
of dismal Sundays.
Early Sunday Morning (1930) by Edward Hopper. Whitney Museum of American Art.
Sunday Blues
Sundays always depress me.
I wish we could pull
them from the calendar,
make the weekend
Friday and Saturday,
and then skip
straight to Monday.
Sunday (1926) by Edward Hopper.
The Phillips Collection.
And of course—the best expression of the “Sunday Blues” is Johnny Cash singing “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” with lyrics by Kris Kristofferson.
Sidewalk Discoveries
One of the joys of walking to work is making discoveries along the way. People, nature, art, and inanimate objects capture my attention as I stride toward downtown Syracuse.
This morning, I saw a pile of clothes and some plastic trash bags strewn on the sidewalk near the intersection of South Crouse Avenue and East Genesee Street. I walked past the pile, then backed up and snapped a picture. I was filled with pity as I surveyed the situation, and I wondered what happened to the owner of the clothes—likely a female. Obviously, I don’t know the reason why the clothes were dumped on the sidewalk, but there must be a sad story behind it.
Clothes on the sidewalk. Photo by Francis DiClemente.
Later in my foot-powered commute, I found some medical notes and records on the sidewalk near Upstate Health Care Center, close to the intersection of Harrison and Townsend streets.
Being a medical records junkie, I grabbed the papers and stuffed them in my bookbag. Later when I reviewed them, I was intrigued by the doctor’s handwriting and the medical terminology listed. I hope and pray the notes refer to more than one patient, because if one patient has all of these issues, that person is in serious trouble (or could be dead by now). Words that stood out for me: hypokalemia (low potassium), neurosurgery, pancreatic cancer, cerebral aneurysms, craniotomy (opening the skull), renal cause, liver and palliative consult.
Handwritten medical notes.
Along with the handwritten notes, there were a few computer printout pages. They detailed the hospital admission of a 56-year-old man with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and a history of hypoxic hypercarbic respiratory failure “who continues to smoke few cigarettes a day.” The records state “the patient has been losing weight despite good appetite” and has “severe protein calorie malnutrition.”
The patient’s BMI (body mass index) was calculated at 14.4, which would make him very underweight. But the good news—he was discharged with prescriptions for oral steroids and other medications and “will continue on his routine respiratory neb (nebulizer?) treatment regimen w/ Budesonide and DuoNeb (inhaler).”
Medical records.
Both the clothes on the sidewalk and the patient’s records reminded me just how harsh, fleeting and fragile life can be. It doesn’t take much for us to have our shit tossed on the street or end up in the hospital.
I remember my sodium and potassium levels crashing in the past, sending me to the ER, so I can relate to the male patient’s distress. He was probably scared as he underwent a battery of tests and was examined by multiple doctors. I wonder if he’s resting comfortably at home, eating enough food and breathing without difficulty.
Kerouac Poetry
I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems, which includes the works Mexico City Blues, San Francisco Blues, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity and Book of Haikus. The Beat Generation novelist and author of On the Road inspired my writing of poetry many years ago. Kerouac, Langston Hughes and Charles Bukowski taught me that you didn’t need an MFA to write poetry, as their art sprang from life experiences. They showed me the power of raw and real voices and stories expressed in the form of free verse.
Kerouac’s collection has more than 600 pages of poetry, but I found much of it gibberish—stream-of-consciousness thoughts, rantings and Buddhist and Catholic references. Yet Kerouac also delivers heart-crushing beauty within the pages of this doorstop.
The poem “Hymn” appears in a section entitled Pomes All Sizes.
“Hymn”
And when you showed me the Brooklyn Bridge
in the morning,
Ah God,
And the people slipping on ice in the street,
twice,
twice,
two different people
came over, goin to work,
so earnest and tryful,
clutching their pitiful
morning Daily News
slip on the ice & fall
both inside 5 minutes
and I cried I cried
That’s when you taught me tears, Ah
God in the morning,
Ah Thee
And me leaning on the lamppost wiping
eyes,
eyes,
nobody’s know I’d cried
or woulda cared anyway
but O I saw my father
and my grandfather’s mother
and the long lines of chairs
and the tear-sitters and dead,
Ah me, I knew God You
had better plans than that
So whatever plan you have for me
Splitter of majesty
Make it short
brief
Make it snappy
Bring me home to the Eternal Mother
Today
At your service anyway,
(and until)
I also enjoyed many of the pieces in the section Book of Haikus. I believe Kerouac’s haikus do not follow the strict Japanese pattern of three lines of five, seven and five syllables.
Here are some autumn-related selections:
Late moon rising
—Frost
On the grass
Waiting for the leaves
to fall;—
There goes one!
First frost dropped
All leaves
Last night—leafsmoke
Crisp cold October morning
—the cats fighting
In the weeds
A yellow witch chewing
A cigarette,
Those Autumn leaves
Kerouac, Jack. Jack Kerouac: Collected Poems. New York: Library of America, 2012.
The book also served another purpose for me. Late last night I found a nail sticking out of the cheap wood paneling in the bedroom of my apartment. I was worried my son would catch himself on it, but I didn’t feel like going to the closet to grab my hammer. So I used the book to bang the nail back into place. Thanks Jack!
