Fourth week, 1000 Words Wausau

This was a hard one. The words:

Instrument
Escort
Geezer
Coincidence

Bending spoons
A carpet of rotting foliage


My first try was an attempt to use the phrase "bending spoons" in a way that wasn't completely obvious. It wasn't an utter failure, but, as Kris said, "This was the weakest of the four."

Joe sat at the table, bending spoons.  He knew it drove Ma nuts, but he insisted he couldn’t eat soup with straight spoons.

It wasn’t a coincidence, that habit of Joe’s. Pappy was the same way. When Pappy was a dentist in Blue Hollow, he customized all of his instruments. Folks who came to Pappy to get their teeth pulled or cavities filled were real worried when saw that odd stuff. But he was finished with them, they were patients for life. 

Ma said Pappy worked for years that way, and he bought this farm with the earnings, helping other people deal with pain.  She said he was a genius, but nobody really noticed that part. They just thought he was nuts. Pappy was an old geezer when the revenuers came, and escorted him out his office and threw him in jail. “Just because he didn’t have a piece of paper on the wall,” Ma said. “And he was better’n all those schooled city dentists.”

 Pappy went screaming crazy after that, but when he came to live with us, he just sat facing a wall. 

When Ma came in the kitchen and saw all of Joe’s spoons, she went nuts herself, and kicked Joe and me out of the house. We went into the woods.  We walked through a carpet of rotting foliage, and  Joe wondered if he would be like Pappy when he got old.

“I don’t know, Joe,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of ya.”

So I gave it another try. It works better, both Kris and I think, although it's schlocky. I think I may have been inspired by a Viagra commercial.

“Would you like to take a walk with an old geezer?” Thomas asked.

Virginia looked up from her book, studying her husband over her cheaters. “No,” she said with a smile, “But I’ll go with you.”

They strolled through the neighborhood, falling into familiar steps and route.  They found themselves in Memorial Park. Its trees had shed their leaves a couple of weeks ago, and they stepped across the carpet of rotting foliage.

“I love this smell,” Virginia said, “Reminds me of us.”

Thomas knew. They met at the resort in the Catskills, him performing as a magician, her playing in the 30-instrument house orchestra.

“You were so awkward,” Virginia said. “Remember?” 

“Of course,” Thomas said. “You looked so sophisticated, carrying that violin case, wearing that gown. And I just fooled people by bending spoons. I could hardly speak to you. “

He remembered how she slipped in the wet leaves and how he ran to her. She had gotten up, and was brushing the leaves from her dress. She had shrugged at the damp spots. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Nobody sees my back.”

Thomas escorted her, her arm in his, to the formal dance. He remembered how the words, almost without thought, slipped out of his mouth, “Can I meet you after?” She nodded, and he felt a new life begin.

“It wasn’t a coincidence, you know,” she told him now, with a smile.

“What?”

Virginia took a step, slipped to the ground.

Suddenly, it was 40 years ago.