Flash fiction: Take Care of the Big Man

I remember:

I was standing under our rim because I had not run to the defensive end of the court.  I had not run to that end because running hurt too much, and anyway my only job was to stand stupidly in the paint, then run back here.  If I waited here I could catch my breath and be ready to play offense, which just meant standing in this paint before running to that paint, which hurt too much, so I might not do it.

My dad was watching the game from the bleachers and I knew he would say something about it when I got home, how basketball is played on both ends of the court and if I needed to practice running he could make it happen for me on the street in front of our house.

I had already had enough practice to last a lifetime after yesterday.  I took twenty shots during the layup drill and every one banged off the rim to the right, or bounced too hard off the square and didn’t even touch the rim. I wore myself out running the fifteen feet from the foul line, missing, and then running to the end of the layup line behind my teammates.

Still, I was the team’s center, despite being unable and unwilling to play, and I was standing underneath the center of the rim watching the developments at the other end of the court.  That is how I saw the ball break loose from the mass of boys and roll toward the sideline near half court.  Mike, my team’s point guard, chased it and caught it before it rolled out of bounds.  He threw a pass straight to me that bounced once and landed in my stomach, otherwise I might not have caught it.

I looked down at the ball in my hands and then up again.  The entire gang of boys was running back here. I could see the other team’s center coming straight at me.

I knew I needed to try to make a basket, but the rim was right over my head and I couldn’t swing the ball over it.  I couldn’t do anything.  I threw it back to Michael who was running toward the the top of the key.  Mike could take a shot from there or drive for a layup.  He could do anything because he was fast and he could shoot and he was ahead of all the defenders.

He didn’t try to score.  He threw another bounce pass to me, only it was a little soft.  I had to take a step forward to catch it.  What was I supposed to do with this?  The other players had crossed mid-court. Mike looked at me and up at the rim.  I swung around and threw the ball off the backboard and it fell through the hoop. Two points.

The other center did not attack me after all.  He grabbed the ball to inbound to the other team’s point guard.  I stood there, surprised as hell.

Mike ran up to me and slapped my chest.  ”Coach says, always take care of the big man.” He ran back down the court to get on defense.

And I ran after him as fast as I could, to take care of my point guard.

Charlie Close is the author of A+, Stories of the author as a boy, available for both Kindle and Nook.

 

Flash fiction: An Angel at Her Door

As soon as Linda looked through the peep-hole, she knew she was caught. It was Nella, dressed as an angel in a white leotard, even with wings and a coat-hanger halo covered with glitter. Nella wouldn’t be alone. She looked up and there was her mother standing on the sidewalk in her faux-leather dress coat. She looked like she was smiling, She always looked like she was smiling.

It took some gumption for Stella to come to her house tonight after she had specifically gotten her friends to vote against her for church treasurer. Linda could have beaten them if she had known someone else had wanted the job, which paid nothing, let it be said. They sneaked up on her and now Stella’s best church friend Elizabeth was treasurer. That’s fine. Any service was worthy service and Linda didn’t really need to occupy every single evening with church business anyway.

Still, it was a bit much for Stella to dress her daughter as an angel of the Lord and come here now. Maybe she should invite Nella inside and tell her a few things about her mother and her mother’s friends.

Or maybe she should open the door and say that Halloween is a pagan holiday and she didn’t have any candy. I’ll see you next Sunday, Mrs. Davidson.

But she did have candy, a whole bowl full, and her porch night was turned on. She was caught, and so she opened the door.

The little girl said trick-or-treat so prettily and bounced her wings and called Miss Linda by her name, just like an angel would, like her mother must have practiced it with her.

Maybe she could choose Nella’s candy for her and give her one of the pieces she had saved from the bag last year. Let her try to chew it with her angelic teeth.

But no. Tempting as it was, Linda held out the bowl and let Nella choose her own candy. Her mother’s actions were her own and their consequences should not be visited upon the innocent.

Charlie is the author of the Stories of Growing Up, a series of stories about childhood written for adults.  The latest is Roaring Crowd, Winter Stories of Growing Up, now available for Kindle.

Haiku review

A very generious review of one my haiku, published in Modern Haiku, was posted on NewPages.com.

Thank-you, NewPages.  And thank-you, Modern Haiku.

The picture that inspired “Kites and Weddings”

My wife Kathy and I went on vacation in Seattle, and it just so happened that we encountered a wedding party on the hill in Gasworks Park.  It was a beautiful spring day and a few people were flying kites from the same hill.  The man in front is the wedding photographer.

This was the scene that inspired the very short story:

The photographer took a few pictures with the kite in the frame and a few without.  He loved weddings in the park.

It was also the basis for the cover. Some days a little luck leads to inspiration. More on very short stories here.