Chicago resident Walter W. Kirchherr has been awarded first place in the annual Prose for Papa writing contest, part of the Ketchum-based Ernest Hemingway Symposium, for his original short story "Evaded Cadence." Kirchherr has a doctorate degree in mathematics, and for more than 20 years served on the computer science faculty at San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif. He is now a "professor emeritus" for the university. He maintains a part-time residence in Sun Valley. His story "The World of Parmenides" was the third-place winner of the Prose for Papa contest in 2007.
The contest rules mandated that submissions be an unpublished short story of 2,600 words or less. The stories were judged by Wood River Valley journalist Sue Bailey and acclaimed novelist Judith Freeman. Freeman selected the contest winners. Kirchherr won $500 for his first-place award.
Here is the winning story in its entirety:
Ron thought:
Ovid, I know what you mean. Lesser men indeed do rule Rome.
He was, as always after breakfast, at the piano. It was a substitute for the work he no longer went to. It was a levee against the dull tide that had flooded the others.
A digital piano was all he could fit in the cottage they lived in now. He played with the headphones on so no one else could hear. To practice out loud with the windows open would startle his inundated neighbors. He saved his public playing for the Sunday choir he still accompanied. In church it was admired. He was even assigned solos—especially recently, now that it was clear he wouldn't be around much longer.
He finished his finger exercises, went on to the Brahms. He liked the sound of the hollow chords with their ambiguity of key. You couldn't immediately tell if a piece would resolve to major or minor.
Julie heard the keys clack on Ron's piano. That's all you could hear when he wore the headphones, but it was so familiar now that she could still identify the piece he played. It was "Edward," Brahms' ballad of patricide. He played it every morning, a signature piece, really, like professional entertainers have. It was a beautiful piece, but Ron never played out loud anymore. Clacked like that, it was just tedious. Anyway, patricide was not the concern here.
Julie was washing the breakfast dishes. This morning it had been eggs, bacon, potatoes. No one else ate like that anymore. Neither did anyone else eat the butter-drizzled pancake stacks she served on other days.
She glanced from habit to her left where the window was. She knew she was watched. That's what the neighbors did: They watched each other through windows and open doors. And yes, next door the lady obsessed with her garden hose was there and attentive. She of course had seen just what Julie had made for breakfast, and of course she would check in again to see what lunch would be. And she knew—of course; they all knew—that Ron had stopped taking his pills.
The neighbor's hose soaked her stockings as always.
Julie disdained her neighbors. That was easy. They were old, discarded already. But it was not so easy to disdain your children.
Ron ended his practice with a few waltzes. Once they had been part of his memorized repertoire. Now he needed notes. Once he had instructed his students to memorize by grasping the logical structure of a piece. Now he was no longer certain just what that old lesson had meant.
He picked up his cane, stood leaning on it. He was fat; he knew that. His knees were shot. He could make it to the kitchen, not much farther. Others encouraged operations—saw out worn joints, bolt in replacements—but operations were no use. He knew that, too. He had not even tried the diet Dr. Laurence lectured on about.
Lunch was ready—dinner, more properly; they could eat their main meal in the middle of the day. Today it was baked pork hocks. With it were dumplings in the bacon grease from breakfast. The wine would be the Riesling they had picked out last week. He sat down carefully, leaned his cane against the table. The first glass of wine was there waiting.
Lucullus was once a mighty general. That's what occurred to Ron.
"Doug and Heidi are coming tonight. Don't forget," Julie said. She was serving the pork hocks.
"Both of them at the same time? Should be interesting. Something like cage fighting. But it's best to kill two birds with one stone. No use wasting two evenings."
"Don't start," Julie said. "They're our children. I consider Doug as much my son as Heidi is my daughter."
"I'm not sure I even want to admit to Doug, but Heidi is yours and yours alone. I suppose Doug is bringing wife number three."
"I doubt it. I imagine he warned her off."
"And your Heidi? She bringing her current lay?"
"I don't know. She didn't say. But don't talk like that. She's had a lot of problems."
"The world is full of problems. Best to deep them at a distance."
"Heidi is my daughter. You can't keep your daughter away."
"Heidi is forty years old. She's not anybody's daughter."
There was no need to say more. It had all been said before.
Julie could feel her neighbors' eyes on her as she served a pork hock with dumplings to her diabetic mate. After dinner, when she served dessert, she could feel the children's eyes on her, too. Neighbors' eyes could be upsetting, but only the eyes of children burned. She wished she could dismiss the children as Ron could do. She knew, in fact had known for years, that your future is not your children.
After lunch, after Julie's cigarettes, they read in the living room. Television had long been banished as inane. Watching it was like sitting in Plato's cave, mistaking shadows on the wall for the real thing. That's how Ron had put it.
·
Heidi arrived first but had not brought her current lay.
"Jesus, I'm exhausted," she said. She slumped on the couch, a teen's posture. "The stress at work is incredible. They won't let me leave, even though they know I have to pick up Grace at five. What do they think I'm supposed to do with her after her lessons?" She paused. She was on the verge of controversy already and didn't want to start anything.
"You could bring her here," Julie said anyway. "You know we're always here."
"Of course I know, Mom. But you know. Let's not go over all that again. Grace is thirteen now, and I want her to learn to respect her body."
"I just want to remind you we're here." Julie did not go on. She was not about to debate teen anatomy. Heidi had never studied science.
"By the way, Doug is coming tonight, too."
"Doug?" Heidi said. "Ron's Doug?"
"He should be here any minute."
"Why didn't you tell me? I could have come another time."
They would fight; they always did. They unsheathed their swords immediately on meeting, rival street gangs on the cusp of each other's turf.
"Well, I hope he at least tries to appear human this time. He's such a lawyer."
·
"So you're a restaurant reviewer now." Doug said that to Heidi when he arrived. "I see your column in the paper." He did not say he read it. Heidi noticed that.
She said, "Yes, every Tuesday and Thursday." She smiled. She shook Doug's hand.
"We had grilled pork hocks for lunch," Ron said. He said it to start the action. He had read sufficient history to know how to rile the mob. You waved Jenkins' ear or a bloody shirt. He patted his stomach. "I suppose you've written about them."
"Uh, no," Julie said. She laughed at the absurdity. "I wouldn't even know where to find something like that. I'm surprised they're still legal."
"Did you really eat that for lunch?" Doug said. "In your condition?"
Ron patted his gut again. "You've got to be in my condition to eat it."
"You are killing yourself; you know that," Doug said. He was looking at Julie, though. Once, in front of Heidi, he had called Julie a character out of that play where the old ladies poisoned the old bachelors. But Julie had just laughed and told Doug he must have the wrong play.
"Had dessert, too. Austrian cheesecake. Delicious."
"Dad, c'mon. When's the last time you checked your blood sugar?" He was still looking at Julie.
"Best not to know."
"It's not my mother's fault, you know," Heidi said. "Ron's all grown up. He can make his own decisions." She turned to Ron. "But I'll give you a copy of my book. There's better stuff in there for you than that stuff. All kinds of good stuff. Healthy stuff."
Julie lit a cigarette. Doug and Heidi leaned away.
"Mom, please," Heidi said. "And you wonder why I don't leave Grace with you."
"I never wondered. I just offered to take care of her. Better here than home alone at thirteen."
"Not with those cigarettes, it isn't."
"Second-hand smoke," Doug said, "is a very dangerous toxin." He was using his lawyer's voice. It was grave and deep. "Particularly for those who have to live with it." He was using the trick again of talking about Ron but looking at Julie. He had found it effective in jury trials. "There has been a lot of expensive litigation over that very issue."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Heidi said. "Who are you planning to sue now?"
"Who said anything about suing anyone?"
"Don't act so innocent. You know very well what I mean." They all knew what she meant. She meant her mother's money. She meant it every time she saw Doug. "And my mother's not poisoning anyone," she added. That was a reference to that earlier theatrical accusation.
"Intent is irrelevant here. Clear prior knowledge is irrefutable."
Void of justice but full of legality. That phrase came to Ron about his son.
"Now, now children. Let's not start," Julie said. She stressed the word "children." "Anyway, it's time to eat." She directed them to the table in the corner of the room.
Heidi was even more appalled than Doug. She did not want to attack her mother—that would mean agreement with Doug—but she pointed anyway and said, "What's that?" And there was a revulsion in her voice she could not hide.
"It's just a cutlet," Julie said.
"Batter-dipped and fried in lard," Ron added. He was pretending to be friendly.
Heidi did not take any. She also skipped the spinach since it was in a cream sauce. Doug took polite bites. Ron had another piece of the cheesecake from lunch. The other two skipped that, too.Julie lit further cigarettes.
After dinner they split into camps. Ron—he blamed his non-ambulatory status—moved to the couch, and Doug—from filial loyalty—joined him. Heidi followed Julie into the kitchen.
·
In the kitchen Heidi said, "Mom, are you joking? I mean, maybe he's a nice guy, but that son of his is a vulture. You can't marry a man whose son is a lawyer. Not with your money."
"You forget we've known each other for almost fifty years. Long before my career. Way before any money. Anyway, you don't know Ron. He's accomplished. He knows music, history, everything I missed."
"He's also broke. Music and history and all that stuff are fine hobbies, but he's broke and always has been. He doesn't even have a pension. And it's pretty clear he drinks."
"I'm not going to change my will, if that's what you're worried about. I mean, if I go first, Ron'll be taken care of. But otherwise it's all yours, same as before."
"See?" Heidi said. "You don't get it. Pieces of paper don't mean anything anymore. Believe me, I know a lot more about this than you do. A lot more about men, too. I mean, I don't know exactly what you did after you and Dad divorced, and"—she held up her hand—"I don't want to know. But I've been burned so many times by men—and by lawyers—that, well, you know what I mean."
"I have no doubt your experience far exceeds mine with respect to men," Julie said. "God knows you've brought enough of them around."
She shouldn't have spoken that last line. It was not right to call your daughter a whore.
Heidi did not notice. She took it as agreement. She went on, "Why don't you let things slide a while? Take a cruise—alone—or something. Then you can decide if you want to go on like this."
"Heidi, at my age you don't have the time to let things slide a while."
It was true. You acquired an adolescent's impatience.
·
In the living room Doug said, "I don't see what you have in common with her, Dad. Wasn't she a microbiologist or something?"
"Worked for a pharmaceutical company. Drug research. Something like that."
"Does she like music? I mean, what do you do together?"
"We keep our fingers in the dike," Ron said. "At our age that's a full-time job."
"Dad, she's killing you. I don't know why, but she is. You've got to get to a doctor."
"I see Dr. Laurence all the time. Doctors can't do anything except take your money."
"Look, if she were feeding you arsenic, we'd call the police. With this food she's poisoning you just the same."
"It's a second choice. I'm too old to drown in sexual excess."
"It's not a joking matter. One could argue criminal abuse here."
"She eats the same stuff I do."
"But she's not in your condition."
"And she smokes."
"Dad, you've got to get to a doctor. You should see Dr. Laurence on a regular basis. And what about your pills?"
"I don't take pills. Not anymore."
"That's what I mean. Pills keep you alive. Even I take a cholesterol pill now."
"You ought to be careful. I've seen what pills can do. They'll drown you in pills if you give them the chance. Doctors will, I mean. But, look, I have pills." He opened a drawer and took out the normal orange container. "I just don't take them." He put them on the coffee table in front of his son for inspection.
Doug ignored them. "Dad, I know how lonely a person can get. But when it comes to marriage you have to be careful."
"We're not married."
"Or any facsimile. The piece of paper hardly matters anymore. Anyway, I don't mean just marriage. I mean relationships, in general. The complications can be smothering."
"You're the expert. By the way, how's wife three?"
"Fine, Dad. Let it drop. It's Julie we're talking about. She's poisoning you. At least none of my wives ever tried that. If you don't do anything about it, it's the same as committing suicide. Is that what you want?"
"At my age there is no need of suicide. My God, I live in an old folks' home. It's not death that's lacking."
·
Julie mused:
What a circle they had traversed. Children of stability, offspring of Depression- and war-scarred parents who had fled to secure crannies where they could breed in peace. Youths of intolerant assurance—no uniqueness there—and discoverers of sex—nor there, either. But rich and many in number and that's where uniqueness lay.
They had known it would be different for them, and it had been.
But now they were back to it. Now the woman was in the kitchen and the man was in the den. What they had once called irrelevant gender dictated once again. She could cook, he was sick, there were reasons. But nonetheless there it was.
How handsome Ron had been back then. How attractive to the skinny and not flat, exactly, but still cleavage-less, eye-glassed young woman she had been. He could play and he could sing and he could talk all night with his fellow students about philosophy, literature, history. And he could lay her—use Ron's word, why not?, it grasps the rawness of it—in ways she had not imagined. He had not an inkling of science. He mocked linear thought. He mocked her long hours in the lab, with progress measured in millimeters, when there was so much out there—he would point to the window—to be lived.
Of course it had not lasted. Nothing did, not then. A few years earlier, perhaps, there might have been a chance to repeat the stability those Depression- and war-scarred parents had grasped so firmly. But youth knew better then as always. Their year or so together ended; their paths forked, she to further science, he to some nineteenth-century ideal of a genius' life, to poverty and a garret where great art could wax unencumbered. There had never been the slightest expectation of permanence.
It was in their re-encounter where the romance was found. When they met again she knew the attraction had not died, and that surprised her. It had not died after all those years and all those other spouses and all those horrid errors of youth. When they met again it was mutual, and that was ego-filling at an age when few compliments were offered. Of course Ron was no longer the slim and thin-bearded Byron who had left for that garret and that poverty and that unencumbered art. He was balloon-gutted now, and white-stubbled, and his nose showed what once were called grog-blossoms. But inside—and at their age inside was all you had—he was still the quipping youth eager to display erudition. What to Heidi, what to the neighbors, what even sometimes to her, was crotchety senility was just that quipping youth in new costume.
The comforting irony was that this time there would be permanence. This time they had no choice.
·
They sat together in the den, as always in the evening. The quarreling children were gone. Ron sipped the last drink of the day. "Well, we're through with them for a while," he said.
"It wasn't so bad. They've been worse, God knows. And it's always good to see them, even if they don't approve." Julie picked up the pills that Ron had left on the coffee table. She showed concern. "What are these doing out?"
"Don't worry. I'm not going back to that. Doug wanted to see them. I don't know why. Probably wants to hit Dr. Laurence with malpractice or something."
"Anyway, you're right. They're gone now. It's our time again." She paused, put out her cigarette. "Are you ready?"
She took his hand, helped him up. Through the window she saw—she saw the same scene every night—her neighbor reeling in her hose. Her sprinkler had sprayed their screen again. Julie checked that the windowsill inside was still dry. She put the pills from Dr. Laurence back into the coffee table drawer.
Virgil's bucolic vine-pruners were pirates resettled by Pompey. Ron had read that somewhere.
Ernest Hemingway Symposium
The Ernest Hemingway Symposium is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 22, through Saturday, Oct. 24. This year, all lectures and presentations will take place at The Community Library in Ketchum.
Walter W. Kirchherr is the winner of the 2009 Prose for Papa contest, part of the Ernest Hemingway Symposium based in Ketchum.
Photo by
