Michael Stephen Daigle's Blog, page 8
August 12, 2023
Mending fences
I started this story in the spring, intending to enter it in a holiday story contest. I didn’t read the rules carefully enough: It was a Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday contest, and this is a July 4 story. It’s not done and a little incomplete. I’ll finish it soon, in time for next July 4.I don’t have a title, but it has an old man, a Black kid and a wrecked baseball field. It’s about how we get along.
A lifetime of working memory lived in his hands. It flowed from his fingers as he looped a three-inch length of 16-gauge steel wire around the gap in the chain-link fence, twisted it twice and then with a long nose pilers, added three more twists as the gap closed. Sixteen-gauge wire was enough. Easier to bend than 10-gauge, but strong enough when looped to hold.
He worked mechanically, humming the chorus of an old tune from the war that his wife used to sing while she baked, something some country singer played or maybe Sinatra, he never really paid attention, a little snappy raise the spirits number. Her hands would be white with flour and sticky with dabs of dough when he kissed her neck. Ralph Mason, not while I’m baking, she’d scold. Is the charcoal ready? They’ll be here after the parade.
The kid arrived under the swish of the occasional car driving the square centered by the park and the tinny vibration of the metal fence.
“You ain’t from around here, are you, Mister?”
The tiny voice blinked Ralph back to the present. Before him stood a thin, scrub-faced kid in a dirty white t-shirt and dragging blue jeans holding a stick that he twirled hand to hand until he pointed it to the ground and leaned on it.
“Could be I was,” Ralph said. “Why do you think that I’m not?”
“Cause you old.” The kid smirked. “And you white. My Daddy said that all you whites moved out years ago, got into your G.I. Joe Fords and took off for the suburbs and your swimming pools and three-car garages.”
Ralph grabbed the fence and pulled himself up from the stool, feeling his arthritic knee clench then release.
“We did, did we? Makes me wonder whose house I sleep in every night. What’s your name, son?”
“Jaylen. Crew calls me ‘J.’ He stabbed the stick at the fence, trying to find a hole, but more often than not hitting metal. He spit out a breath and stopped.
“Well, Jaylen, I’m Ralph. Glad to meet you. And, well, yes, my white friends did move out, or they died, but I live in the house my grandfather built at the turn of the last century and that’s where I’ll die. This is home.”
Jaylen drew a square or something on the ground, dragging the stick quicker and harder in the dusty soil.
“Ain’t that special,” he muttered. “You the last white man.” He turned to leave.
“Actually it was, special. My grandparents had eight children, they had twenty more between them. We had enough brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins to fill out two baseball teams on July 4th. We’d play here. My father and his brothers put up this fence to keep the ball from rolling down the hill.”
“Why they do that? No one plays here. It’s just weeds and junk.”
“Wasn’t then.” Ralph shrugged. “You just do it. Where do you live?”
“Projects.”
“Ah, luxury.” Ralph nodded. Tension breaker.
Jaylen shook his head and offered a smirk. “Yeah. Top notch.”
Ralph buried a grin. It worked. “What do you do on July 4? Family get together?” he asked.
The kid leaned his back to the fence. “Naw. Just me and my older sister. Old man’s gone. She’ll head the Shore with her friends. She’ll get in trouble and my Mom will have to take a day off from work to get her. She works at the warehouse, works a lot, my mom does. Pay’s better, but she’s never home. I’ll hang with my crew, Maybe go down to the river and swim, but Rodney drowned …”
Jaylen leaned his head back and stared in to the sky; he closed his eyes. “What you gonna do?”
Ralph shifted the stool and sat. “Maybe I’ll get in my G.I. Ford and head to the suburbs and hang around my friend’s pool.” He awaited for a response, a scowl, a word, but none came. Too much. “The fence is about done, finish it today. The holiday’s a Wednesday. My son lives on the West Coast and my daughter, she’s an Army captain stationed in Germany. So, if the weather’s good I’ll come here and tackle the weeds. Something to do.”
They sat in silence. Ralph stood; he knew he needed to move or his knee would lock up. “How old are you, Jaylen?”
The kid shook his head to waken. “Thirteen.”
“Too young to be the man of the house. You play ball?”
Jaylen stood and flipped the stick in the air and caught it. “No. No body… you know. No stuff.”
“I’ve got my kid’s gear in the garage. Come by here Wednesday and it’s yours. Bring your crew.”
Jaylen turned away and rattled the fence with the stick as he walked. Over his shoulder, “Yeah.”
Anyway…more to come …
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August 7, 2023
A letter from a burning world
They pulled us off the line last night, kid. Out of the fire. But the air is burning still, tastes of ash, smells like wet charcoal. It gets sucked into your skin, where it grinds into your pores. When does it end? When do we stop burning the world with hate and anger, disinterest and disappointment? When does your love bring reconciliation? When do your eyes find peace? They say all this will grow back, the blackened land will heal, The scorched trees feed for rebirth. We’ve burned the earth before, ground it all to dust, smashed it with war, dirtied it, poisoned it. Gloried over destruction, reveled in the sodden pain; stolen the dreams of grandchildren. We could leave them a glowing cinder. I’ll sleep tonight and breathe the smoke. My dreams will be red, burning gold so hot my fingers will burn. I have the photo you sent me, buried under layers of fire gear to keep it safe. Your naked skin is tanned and your hair wrapped damp around your neck as we curled in the stream pool, the water so cold your skin burned and rippled, your mouth so fresh it brought life. That moment, that thing, is why I am here pushing back the fires that rage and destroy.
There is clear water somewhere here. By fistfuls I’ll splash my face, and rub away the layers of ash from my lips so all I taste is you.
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August 1, 2023
Typical day
Was today typical?
Yeah sure. Coffee, toast. Walk the dog. Talk to the neighbors about why the young couple didn’t buy the big house on the street they had been fixing for the past year….wondering what finally scared them off. Then work phone calls and looking at a photo and wondering why we haven’t talked.
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July 31, 2023
Nagler 6: NAGLER’S SECRET. Who is the yearbook girl?
Emerging in book six of The Frank Nagler mysteries, NAGLER’S SECRET is the identity of a woman who has appeared as a redhead, in a couple of blurry snapshots, and might be a women in an undated Polaroid photo in which she stands next to Nagler.
Is she someone from his past? Or pretending to be?
Is she associated with the suspicious organization called Sunshine Farms? Or pretending to be? Or is someone making all this up?
Nagler seeking leads, takes the advice of street savant Irv Bernstein and examines old high school yearbooks for clues.
A top review for DRAGONY RISING: 5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptionally Well Written Book!A very well written and highly engaging book that sucked me in right away. The author masterfully crafted a fast paced and very realistic crime story. If you are into crime drama or mysteries, this book is a must! Well done…well done indeed!
The scene:
Nagler shifted the magnifying glass over the yearbook photo. Had to be, back row, third from the end. Why there? She seemed to be nearly a foot shorter than the boy to her left and the girl to her right. Photographers usually placed all the short kids in the front row. Hiding? But standing out. Short, roughly cut hair, dark glasses, face in a scowl. He held the blurry photo of the girl as close to the yearbook photo as possible.
Shook his head. “Can’t be sure.” He read the names under the photo: Robert Phillips, Kathy Dennis. Two names, three faces. No Nancy Pollard. “How did she pull that off? Maybe just walked away.” He turned to the shuffle coming from the bedroom.
“It’s three a.m., Frank,” Lauren said. “And as intriguing as it is to find you drinking beer in the kitchen in your underwear, enough’s enough. You won’t catch her here, now. Catch her in the morning.”
“I know, but look,” He held out his hand.
She rolled her head on her neck. “What?”
He held out the magnifying glass. “Is that her?”
Lauren pulled the white cotton robe around her, and sighing, took the glass. “I’m…”
Nagler offered her the copy of the blurry photo and she swapped her glance back and forth.
“Jeez. Close. Maybe?”
“Then why’s her name not listed?”
Lauren placed the glass on the table and sat. “Crime of the century, there, Frank.”
He tapped a legal pad on the table. “There’s forty-three references to her in the five yearbooks. Volunteer student first aid, French Club, library aide, drama club, director of five plays, set designer, several lead roles. Front office assistant, and so on. But only one possible photo. Not even in crowd shots of the cafeteria. Not even by accident.”
“What are you saying?”
“No one is that busy and that unseen.”
Lauren leaned back and flashed her eyebrows in a puzzled empty stare. “When I was in high school the only people who did that many activities were trying to get into Princeton. Did you check school enrollment records?”
“Tomorrow, first thing. It gets worse?”
She grinned, a tired, three a.m. grin. “How?”
“She signed all these yearbooks to me, a couple times each. ‘Dear, Frank. Always remember the NYC trip.’ I never took a trip to New York. Couldn’t afford it. And, ‘I pointed to you in the third act. You were in the front row. Never forget it.’ No idea. Then, this one, ‘Thanks for the algebra help. Wouldn’t have passed without you.’”
Lauren laughed. “That proves she’s a fake. No one would ask you for help with math.”
“Then why’s this one bother me so much? ‘Au revoir, dear heart. Till I return.’”
“Well, she came back, right? Didn’t you two screw in the theater balcony?”
He wiped his hands over his head. “Yeah, someone came back. And yeah, the theater, maybe the scar, but she had a fake name and was gone soon after.”
“After she got what she wanted.”
“Is that how I screwed up?”
“Are you sure you did? You’ve been carrying things forever, Frank. Maybe for a while…” She crossed to his chair and sat on his lap, the robe open. “You never answered my question from the other night. What did you talk about?”
He wrapped an arm around her under the robe and kissed her hair. “Catch-up stuff. Parents were dead. Becoming a cop. Charlie Adams.”
“Why would she ask about him, a jailed serial killer? Did she ask about Martha?”
He leaned his head into hers. “No. Not one question.” “Clearly odd, if she had known you. First question, right?:
“But I don’t really know how much I would have talked about Martha.”
“But she would have asked. What else?”
“Sister Katherine. She asked about the battered women’s network. Said she had a friend who was trying to get out of a bad marriage.”
“Wasn’t that network supposed to be a secret? Hidden from public view for the safety of the women? The organizers are sworn to secrecy. They’ve gone to jail. Sister Katherine would have denied it existed. What did you tell her?”
He leaned his head back on his shoulders and yelled, “Fuck! That’s the oldest cop technique in the world. Throw out a leading question to get an answer. Become their friend. ‘So, Franky, the old nun, she runs the safe house? Must be important to her.’ And maybe the question comes back a couple times, and the details blur, a half a quart of Jack and a blowjob later, maybe it’s, ‘Yes.’”
Lauren stood and draping Nagler’s hand over her shoulder, dragged him toward the bedroom.
“Aw, Frank. Why are you afraid of this? I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything. Just how personal is all this?”
He caught up to her, pulled her close and kissed her neck. “About time to find out, huh?”
Lauren dropped the robe on a chair and slipped into bed. She turned off the bedside lamp. “Tomorrow,” she said as she settled into Nagler’ side. “No more Nancy Pollard tonight, okay? I have to meet with the bankers in the afternoon to find enough money to pay you guys.”
“So, I’m working for nothing?” She patted his cheek. “Tomorrow, Frank.”
“Okay.” He rubbed her bare back and listened as she exhaled one long I’m going to sleep now breath. “Hey, kid.” “What?” “Is that fake Frank website still operating?”
“Oh, man. Yes. We just never took it down.” She raised on one elbow. A slight grin. “Why?”
He kissed her and tugged her elbow away so she laid on her side. “Tomorrow.”
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July 8, 2023
Out of a Covid fog, comes writing clarity
Turns out the very heavy cold I had for the past week was Covid.
It was like being in a waking coma. Everything shut down to a narrow focus as my immune system attacked the virus. Real time didn’t matter—light and dark passed, the dog got walked, but everything beyond that narrow focus didn’t exist.
My mind was set on reserve power, low wattage to protect the guts of the system, but all real energy was put to other uses like survival and healing.
Then it was gone and the fog lifted.
What showed up was a key part of a tricky scene I’m writing into the sixth Frank Nagler Mystery, NAGLER’S SECRET.
I don’t recommend this as a way to get past mild writers block.
At their core, the Nagler books tell the story of healing for the city of Ironton, N.J. and of Detective Frank Nagler, wrapped in page-turning, intense mysteries. NAGLER’S SECRET is about finding a piece of the detective’s past that leads to the modern killer.
The scene takes place in an old theater that is under renovation as the symbol of the city’s economic recovery.
The Frank Nagler Mysteries are available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Audible.com, Applebooks and at Book & Puppet Co, in Downtown Easton, Pa.
The scene (Note: Lauren is Lauren Fox, Nagler’s companion and acting mayor of the city.):
He spun away and launched himself, damaged left ankle protesting, to the lip of the stage and sat resting forward on his palms while scanning the dark dimensions of the theater’s ancient walls.
“How many more lives does this place have, ya think, Lauren?”
He continued before she could answer.
“How many more times can Hamlet die here, or the Music Man strut or Willy Loman pack our sorrows into his sample case? How many more times can Indiana Jones slash across an 80-foot screen to burnish our dreams, or Thelma and Louise sail into immortality? Will it live to see the day when an Ironton High School sophomore will suck the oxygen out of the place with her kneeling rendition of Maria on the playground spilling her love and anger over the concrete, or a bu
He spun and stood, his back to Lauren.
“Will Romeo reach again to Juliet?” as he reached to the stage galleries. “Will Hamilton, Jefferson and Washington be here to dream of a great nation, or ageless bluesman with a guitar and beer bottle slide peel back the dust of time” as he air-guitared the moment. “Or a Christmas pageant that has Santa and Jesus Christ step-dancing to Bill Monroe. Will a comic leave them rolling in the aisles before some nine-year-old who mashed Mozart has the audience wash away her tears with a wave of applause? Or is it the fading light of a strip tease that leaves the audience wondering if the dress actually came off before the spot light faded?” He stepped to the center stage and spread his hands. “Or will this just be the place in its last act that a 14-year-old kid with paint cans tried to tell us the story of her troubled, hunted friends, begging us to end the pain? Or worse, is it the closing act of a broken down cop, tripping over his own heartache and frailties who could not help her?” “Nagler’s Secret: ‘These kids are like water, Frank’” ‹ Michael Stephen Daigle — WordPress
“Frank.” Lauren’s sharp voice shattered the silence.
“Isn’t that what we ask ourselves every day in this city, this godforsaken city? What else can go wrong? You ask yourself that every day as cop. But what do we do?”
She paced the orchestra pit. “Something. We do … something. I told you about my first day as acting mayor, sitting in Ollivar’s chair pinned under the weight of all he had done, grieving for his death and just so pissed that for once in his slimy life he couldn’t have done the right thing before it was too late. Was that too much to ask?”
Frank exited the stage, crossed to Lauren and offered her an embrace. “I remember that,” he said. “I …”
She stepped back and spun way, holding out one arm.
“You know what I did that day? This is the part I didn’t tell you. After begging state officials for funding, firing of the last of the Dragony sympathizers who were carrying matches ready to ignite it all again, and getting hung up on by corporate types who were so fucking full of their know-it-all bullshit and could not be bothered to invest here even at the steepest damn discount they were ever going to be offered, I hung up the phone, crossed to the window and after smacking the glass a few times, I noticed the flowers in the parking lot planters were badly limp. I couldn’t call public works because I had fired most of them. You know what I did, Frank, that first day, the day I was supposed to begin saving Ironton? Turns out some smart person years ago built a metal cabinet on the side of the building with a faucet and for a hose just to water the plants in the parking lot. I couldn’t fix anything else that day, so I watered the flowers.”
She crossed to him and touched his face.
“Watered the flowers. So, no more tragedy, no more drama, Frank Nagler. If Maria Ramirez was here, she’d pat your cheek twice and tell you to suck it up.” She kissed him. “But first shave, then suck it up.” “Right,” he said.
Before he could say more, the side door was yanked open and a bleeding Destiny Wonder stumbled in.
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June 30, 2023
Are there things you try to practice daily to live a more...
Are there things you try to practice daily to live a more sustainable lifestyle?
Started more than 20 years ago…replaced incandescent Luba with eventually led… solar security lights electric lawnmowers and now fully electric yard tools…finally solar on the roof that even on bad solar days generates 2 to 3 times what we use and we sell the rest back to the grid….eventually an electric truck
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June 29, 2023
What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?A plate...
What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?
A plate of fresh fried clams and hot. Dripping butter lobster and on the outdoor deck at Shaw’s wharf new village Maine ..fresh sea air and swarming seagulls
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June 28, 2023
If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again...
If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?
I pretty much gave up formality yet years ago … so jeans are the outfit… no forcing no weighty thought process …wear em till they’re dirty put on another pair
O
Em
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June 25, 2023
A lesson from Robert Frost
Not to get all Robert Frosty, but we’ve been at this crossroads before
And taken one turn or the other
That seem to circle back seeking light through a dim trail blocked by near misses, misunderstandings,
anger, blame, tears, emptiness that comes from disappointment.
So we determined march on, scrape away our steps, throw up the shield and craft
the plastic face that hides the shimmer of taste and desire and the woe of
kisses never completed, lips never touched, hands and moist fingers distant,
words incomplete, hollow breath, left standing in a growing distance, a rising sky, shrinking inside the shell, a voice too small to crack the rising silence.
Forgetting we strewed the path with flowers and empty tea cups, buds wrapped in newspapers delivered secretly, Caribbean beaches, the light of you, all the stuff that never balances the words not said the touches missed, a stumbling walk that fills your eyes with sadness because it all should have been better, deeper, thrilling, burning, joy screaming, not silent and cold on a path that finds a dark end.
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How do you waste the most time every day?Define waste…are...
How do you waste the most time every day?
Define waste…are we all type As turning every moment into progress, every action into a win…maybe that’s the waste…how about seeking old friends and lovers making peace sitting in the yard birdwatching avoiding mowing the lawn watching old tv shows…the future comes whether we march into it or not….enter at your own pace and not someone else’s
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