Messages: Short Stories for the Thoughtful

Table of Contents

Preface

Love Scene

A Cop’s Toughest Job

Step to the Rear

Engines of the Heart

Christmas Cop

Serendipity at Live Oak

The Beat of Henry’s Heart

Gigo’s Crime

Herman’s Date

Free at Last?

Victor’s Dilemma

The Other Side of Bully

Mother’s Day at the Book Store

Ripples of 9/11

The Good Old Days

The Power of Love

A Flat (Ulent) Experience

The Funeral

About the Author

Preface

Spare time creates a precarious lull in the life of a compulsive writer. It usually means that something — anything — must be cranked out or else a spouse, friends, neighbors or kids will suffer from a deluge of unwanted attention. Ergo, books, letters, political op-eds, e-mails and short stories.

Like most authors will attest, writing is like an addiction, not much different from cigarettes, drugs, gambling or sex. You get hooked after the first feel-good experience, then spend the rest of your life trying to duplicate the same feeling. However, by writing you can create a finished product, not get finished by a product you don’t create. Why else do successful authors, amid all their wealth and prosperity, continue to lock themselves in a room for months at a time to keep pumping out written words by the millions?

Having retired after thirty years in Miami as a patrol cop, homicide detective and then a few command positions, I left with an immense reservoir of stories ready for the keyboard. One lifetime is not enough to capture them all in manuscripts. Add in, the trials and tribulations of multiple marriages, fathering four children, adopting three more and struggles through my own array of addictions and demons until, one day, the storm calmed and the opportunity for creation was at my doorstep. The volume of stories to tell is beyond infinite.

I turned to a life of writing, not only for enjoyment and perhaps a little income, but as a catharsis in which I could express and share the many aspects I’ve learned from living the good life, the bad life and the sad life. Now it is a blessing to be able to wake up every day with umpteen hours at my disposal, to do what I want to do, not what I have to do.

My first short fiction story emerged sometime in the late 1990s and was readily tucked away. It started as an idea for a book, but I saw that the message could be tightly bound in a far fewer word count. Since then, I’ve produced another seventeen stories and kept them packaged away for a rainy day. Many of them could have been the basis for a full blown novel.

The rainy day has arrived and it is time to unleash them from the hard drive and publish the collection as a book before the passage of time rendered half of them out-dated.

These are not traditional war stories about cops and robbers; rather they chronicle a myriad of emotions gleaned from life and human experience in its most vulnerable states. After all, police officers are humans too. They are about loss, tragedy, struggle, youth, old age, the gift of love, the denial of love and a sprinkle of humor thrown in.

All of these eighteen stories — to a greater or lesser degree — are based on true happenings which I am intimately familiar with or have credible knowledge about. Naturally, I have taken literary license to skew, embellish, exaggerate and add a bit of drama to the text. Some readers may wonder which of them are closest to the truth, so I have provided a measuring device called: Truth-o-meter. On the title page of each story, readers will see a percentage rating which tells what degree of truth the tale was derived from. But have no doubt, these stories are all fiction with fictional characters, although I suspect some readers will think a particular character is him or her.

Stories should not only entertain, but stimulate thought. Some of the material is dark, some light, some ironic and some frivolous and silly. But there exists a message in each which I hope will be of value to some, or at least, a few. At age seventy-two, all I can offer my fellow human beings is the benefit of vast experience in dealing with emotional trauma and whatever wisdom was gleaned during the course of one man’s life.

The messages abound, depending on how one relates them to their own unique lives. Most are clear, some not so clear, but they are there. I hope readers will appreciate them all for their intended purpose: Understanding mankind.

Enjoy.

Truth-o-meter: 40%

Love Scene

Love is, or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.

— Toni Morrison

Arnold Rudd was born of humble means in Durham, North Carolina, with a condition later to be known as Attention Deficit Disorder. That term had not yet been invented in 1927, so the boy grew up with adults nagging him to follow rules, settle down, do as he’s told, pay attention and shut up! Lord, his mother often said. What am I going to do with that kid?

But Arnold also had talents. Like many borderline Autistics, he could play classical music by ear and write essays without anyone ever teaching him how. But friends were hard to come by because, well, he was so weird. Adults nicknamed him Harpo because he had naturally bushy blond hair.

Raised by a widowed mom with burdens of job, home and making ends meet, Arnold spent a lot of time alone in his room with his 78 rpm record player, conducting Beethoven symphonies, singing along with Bing, practicing violin and writing, writing and…writing. His paper and pencil became the outlet for releasing his inner most feelings. Without that natural gift, he might have gone mad. Unless it was a school project, everything he wrote found its way to the circular file.

He managed good grades in English simply because he could scratch out a book report without ever reading the book. In one tenth grade assignment, students were required to study a major topic for an entire semester, then submit a lengthy report with bibliography and footnotes. It counted for one-half of the semester grade. But, Arnold never studied anything. He waited until the night before the due date and worked eight frenzied hours penning a twenty-nine page report on the history of classical composers — from his head. He fabricated the titles of five books and their authors for a bibliography, and added bogus footnotes in the hopes the teacher would not check them out. She didn’t. He got an A Plus.

During the war years, Arnold and his mother moved to Florida where she could find work as a domestic. Known as the campus nerd, the boy ultimately survived his high school years though many of the girls seemed attracted to his intellect. Young adulthood led him to various jobs playing piano in night clubs and violin in local symphony orchestras. Now a handsome twenty-something, girls were drawn to him like moths to the flame, especially when he played strains of a Gypsy Czardas on the violin.

Into his late forties, Arnold had accumulated three wives, three divorces and two children, both raised by their mothers and stepfathers. Young women thought he was a celebrity of sorts and reveled in being associated with a near-genius. He had loved each, but after a short time, they couldn’t deal with his oddball ways. Each time he uttered the marriage vows, he truly thought he had found his soul mate, the woman of his dreams. As the relationships fell apart, he valiantly tried to stick through them, for better or for worse. But, the marriages failed mainly because, well, Arnold was still a weirdo. They all had the same reasons: Distant. Reclusive. Inattentive.

Often, he was found writing — always writing — on paper, on walls, on napkins, on his hands and arms. He could never seem to meet expectations. The women needed more attention. When his wives felt neglected, he felt smothered. He searched for space. He needed freedom to unbridle his mind.

No matter his domestic storms, the addiction to writing never waned. Nearing his fifties, he still looked for quiet, remote corners where he could pour his thoughts, worries, ambitions and fantasies onto paper. Yet, Arnold still craved the elusive quest: Love.

Paula Santiago came from Bogota, Colombia, but had lived in Miami for most of her forty-four years. Arnold met her at a Calle Ocho Festival where she sold her clay sculptures from a ten-foot square tent. Something in those Spanish eyes set her apart from any woman he’d ever known. Close, yet distant. Welcoming, yet independent. Her accent fascinated him. She had boundless energy, an incredible smile and — she had great legs.

Paula had been single for five years, a widow who had survived a bad marriage in the interest of religious faith. Her husband had tested three times the drunkenness limit when he was killed in a car wreck. Her two sons had long moved on. Arnold could see that her passion for art was all-consuming. It defined her.

Paula also thrived on being true to herself. What you see is what you get, she told him as they embarked on a cautious dating spree. She marveled at his stories and letters and she loved his violin. Her favorite was Ave Maria. Play it for me, Arnold. They warned each other not to get serious because, well, they just weren’t meant for marriage. After a year of dating, they finally argued. A stupid argument, but one that lit the caution light. It scared the hell out of them, so reminiscent of past loves. Ah, relationships. They never last. The two lovebirds broke up, but ever so reluctantly.

Usually such separations gave Arnold a sense of relief. This time it was different. He missed Paula desperately. He dreamed of her loving touch, her strength and her devotion. He had been drawn to her own well of solitude and to her immersion into world of art. It reminded him so much, of him.

Two miserable weeks went by. Alone, he reminisced about her soft voice, her comforting words, that incredible feel of an artist’s hands and the freedom she gave him. It’s okay, Arnold, I have a statuette to make, we’ll meet at dinner, then cuddle in front of the TV, like always. Go write your stories, your articles, or your diary. Better yet, why don’t you write a book?

He finally realized what made her irreplaceable. She didn’t want him for herself, she wanted him, for himself. She derived pleasure from seeing him bathe in his own achievements. Likewise, she had taught him to enjoy her own immersion in the world of creation. Surely, he had found the woman of his dreams. And surely, she had found the man of her dreams.

Love abounded. Arnold wasn’t a weirdo any more. He was okay, just the way he was born.

In the next thirty-five years, Arnold wrote hundreds of published articles and more than twenty books, one of which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Paula’s celebrated art works were constantly on demand and shown at the finest galleries throughout America. Though they enjoyed material riches, their true wealth came from the ceaseless freedom of expression and the joy it gave others.

Her words echoed in his mind and heart. Remember, Arnold. It is often said, true love consists not in gazing at each other, but looking in the same direction, together.

As old age arrived, rheumatoid arthritis took control of Paula’s body, wracking her with pain in her hands, arms and legs. Finally she had to discontinue art work, unable to use the tools nature gave her to fulfill her the mission. As the arthritic pain intensified, prescriptions were the only source of relief. Yet, she continued to sell her creations.

But Paula was still able to drive, and drive she did. One fall day in 2009, she was driving from a Miami art showing on her way home to Fort Lauderdale. Somehow, she ended up in Homestead, forty miles in the wrong direction. It wasn’t the first sign of that dreaded disease. For weeks, Arnold had noticed that she often lost her thought process in mid-sentence, wore only her bra and panties walking out the door, put her socks in the freezer and broke out crying without reason.

Now into his early eighties, Arnold knew his life would become a void without his treasured Paula. He wrote voraciously, excoriating God for doing this to the most wonderful woman on planet Earth. Surely, as she slipped away, he would slip back to being a weirdo again.

During her most lucid moments, he talked with Paula about her disease, and where it was leading the both of them. Dangers lurked, for she was sure to harm herself without professional care. One day, she asked him to put her in a home. "They’ll take good care of me there, Arnold,