A Very Short Collection of Very Short Stories

A Very Short Collection of Very Short Stories

  by Maniel

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  A Very Short Collection of Very Short Stories

  Copyright © 2012 by Maniel

  Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. The stories in this book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided they remain in their complete original forms.

  Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

  All stories in this book are works of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The characters and events are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The Baseball Practice

  By Maniel

  “I love that smell,” says Jerry.

  “That’s manure,” says Mr. Bloom.

  “It smells like baseball to me, Mr. Bloom.”

  “Jerry has to smell baseballs because he can’t see them,” I say.

  “Jerry playing baseball, manure, it’s the same thing,” says Marvin.

  “You kids sure can talk. Warm up so that we can start!”

  “It’s nice of your dad to take us out like this,” I say.

  “He says it keeps him young,” says Danny, “but he does it for me.”

  “Everyone ready?” asks Mr. Bloom after several minutes of warm-up throws. “Let’s take some infield,” he says, carrying a long thin bat. We are on one of four baseball diamonds on the huge square field in southwest Los Angeles.

  “Bring it home,” yells Mr. Bloom, sounding hoarse in the winter chill. Jerry at third base fields Mr. Bloom’s first ground ball and fires it home. Danny at shortstop and Marvin at second do likewise. Howard at first throws home wildly. At the plate, I can’t reach it and Mr. Bloom skips out of the way.

  “Hey, don’t make me an orphan in junior high school,” yells Danny.

  After about fifteen minutes, Mr. Bloom wraps up infield practice and takes a bag of used baseballs to the pitcher’s mound. “Howard, you hit first. Wes, left field.”

  “Right field,” says Howard. “I hit left-handed.” I go to right field.

  With short, powerful arms, Mr. Bloom looks like a tree stump on the pitcher’s mound. He reaches into the yellow bucket next to him, produces a grass-stained baseball, winds a bit awkwardly, and throws a low strike. Howard drives the pitch to deep right field, over my head. He hits most of the following pitches to right or center field. Then, Mr. Bloom yells, “Danny, you’re next.” Danny finds his bat, takes some warm-up swings, and steps up to hit.

  “Get that bat off your shoulder,” says Mr. Bloom.

  Danny ignores the suggestion. Mr. Bloom winds and throws – Danny coils and uncoils smoothly and meets ball in front of the plate, driving it deep to left-center field.

  “Yeah, Danny, get that bat off your shoulder,” yells Howard.

  Danny drives the next pitch toward the pitcher’s mound catching his father on the thigh. “I don’t see how you can hit with that bat on your shoulder,” says Mr. Bloom through clenched teeth, dancing off the mound and rubbing his thigh.

  “Sorry, Dad. Are you okay?”

  “They’re here again,” announces Jerry.

  “Who’s here?” asks Howard.

  “That big guy and his little kid.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look over there,” says Jerry, pointing at the adjacent field.

  “What about it?” asks Howard.

  “Watch the way the man pitches. He scares his kid to death.”

  We stop to watch the man wind and throw hard toward the boy at the plate. The boy backs away. The man walks part way toward the boy, points at him, and yells something.

  “Have you seen them before?” asks Howard.

  “Yeah,” says Jerry. “It makes me sick.”

  “Why don’t we go over there?” asks Howard.

  “Forget it,” says Mr. Bloom, still walking off the pain, “it’s none of our business.”

  Then Howard says, “I’ll be right back,” and starts walking. Jerry follows.

  “We came to play, boys, not start a fight,” yells Mr. Bloom.

  “There won’t be any fight,” Howard replies, still walking. As Mr. Bloom, Danny, Marvin, and I watch, the small boy points and the man turns to confront Howard and Jerry. He is a head taller than the two boys. Taking the bat from Danny, Mr. Bloom says, “You boys wait here and I mean it,” and starts walking toward the scene.

  After some discussion, Howard takes the child’s place at bat. The big man winds and throws. As Howard falls smoothly to the ground, the ball just misses his head and slams into the wire-screen backstop.

  Danny, Marvin, and I start walking toward the scene. Mr. Bloom is running now with short, choppy steps and yelling, “Hey you, stop, you, stop!” The big man turns to face him. Mr. Bloom, his face red and his breath coming in gasps, shows the man the bat he is carrying and shouts hoarsely, “don’t do that again.”

  “Damn,” says the big man, “who the hell do you people think you are, bothering us like this?”

  Mr. Bloom finally catches his breath enough to say slowly, “Mister, if you hurt that boy, I’ll break your head.”

  Danny, Marvin, and I have come up behind Mr. Bloom. With his eye on the bat in Mr. Bloom’s hand and his face now pale, the big man takes two steps backward, turns toward the small boy and says, “We’re going. You see what happens? You cry and act like a sissy, worse than a little girl, and these big shots feel sorry for you.” He grabs his bat from where Howard let it drop and pushes the little boy in front of him. The two of them walk toward the parking lot.

  Howard yells after them, “Hey kid, you might not want this but it’s yours.” He throws the ball that just missed his head, over the fence, to the boy. “Nice catch. You can play with us any time.”

  “Yeah, and there’s plenty of room at my house,” says Jerry.

  “All right boys, that’s enough!” says Mr. Bloom. Then looking around, he says, “Swell, I love how everyone does exactly as I say.”

  “What made you go up to hit like that?” asks Danny.

  “I asked the guy if he wasn’t throwing a little too hard for the kid,” says Howard. “So he says, ‘I don’t want him to be some kinda sissy. Why, you think you can do better?’ I thought he wanted me to pitch, so I said ‘yes.’ But, then he says, ‘get up there.’ So I just did it.”

  “Brilliant,” says Mr. Bloom.

  “I’m sorry I got you into it, Mr. Bloom, but I don’t think he could have hit me.”

  “I don’t think you did the kid any good,” I say.

  “That’s just great Reiss. Where the hell were you?” Jerry says.

  “Wes is right,” says Howard, “that guy’s a psycho. I really feel sorry for his kid.”

  “Why do you think he was doing that, Dad, to his own kid?” asks Danny.

  “He wants the boy to be a baseball player with no fear. That’s obviously not the right way to go about it, but I know how he feels.”

  “That kid will learn to hate baseball, if he doesn’t already,” says Jerry.

  “We have about forty more minutes. We can finish our practice, if you boys think you can listen to me, or we can leave now. Which will it be?”

  “Let’s play!” says Danny.

  The Reporter and the Counselor

  By Maniel

  “Rather than assistant to the assistant sports reporter, could I be the school crime reporter?” I asked.

  Miss Dudley, my journalism teacher, appeared to be more amused than interested. She did
respond to my idea with words like “novel” and “creative” but then said, “I’m not sure there will be anything to report.”

  “I could try it for a while,” I said. “If there’s no crime news, we could just report that all is well at Murrow High.”

  “I can’t keep you in the class, Wes, if you’re not putting stories in the Lucky Strike. I’ll give you three weeks, but if you have no crime stories by then, I’ll ask you to cover the debate team.”

  I set about to uncover wrongdoing at Murrow, but with nothing to show after two weeks, I turned to Sal who lived just down the street. We would talk about everything: sports; girls; movies; music; you name it – well, everything except the debate team. He was a senior – a year ahead of me – and had been a reporter for the school newspaper since he arrived at ERMHS. It was Sal who had recommended that I take journalism in my junior year. He had said, “You have to if you want to write for the Lucky Strike.”

  It was Sal who tipped me off about the foiled scheme to paint the mirrors red in the girls’ restroom. Miss Dudley was less than sympathetic when I presented that story to her. “Where’s the evidence? Where are the witnesses? We need more than this, Wes. There’s a debate with North City High this afternoon in the small auditorium. Get us both sides on that for this Friday’s edition.”

  I brought all this up to Sal. After I mentioned that I was thinking of trying to change classes, he said, “Some stories don’t pan out, but you can’t let that stop you.” I reminded him that he was the one who had tipped me off. He then brought up how attractive Miss Dudley was: terrific smile; long auburn hair; and that athletic figure. “That’s what keeps me coming to class,” he said.

  *****

  I stayed in the journalism class. I have to admit that the thought of seeing Miss Dudley every day did influence my decision. She actually accepted an article of mine, “Murrow Debate Team Seizes Both Sides,” for page 3 of an edition of the Lucky Strike.

  About mid-way through the school year, Sal mentioned that he had decided on pre-med at the University of California, San Diego.

  “Very cool,” I said.

  “What are your plans after high school?” he asked.

  “I’d like to study engineering at a UC branch, but my grades are a little low.”

  Sal stroked his smooth chin for a moment – he was now shaving every other day – and said, “You might want to talk to Mrs. Golden about improving your transcript.” That very same day I made an appointment to meet with the miracle worker, Mrs. Golden, one of our school counselors.

  Mrs. Golden remembered me from a previous counseling session and greeted me with a smile, a firm handshake, and a “so nice to see you again, Wes.” She explained how much she wanted students from Murrow High, “one of the city’s very best,” to attend the college of their choice. “Sometimes,” she said, “through no fault of your own, because your teachers were too busy or because they loaded you up with too much work, your transcripts don’t fully reflect how well you’ve done here. I don’t think that’s fair, do you?” she asked.

  “High school has been challenging,” I said; “the teachers are strict and the students are competitive. My grades aren’t bad, but I'm pretty sure they won’t get me into the University of California.”

  “What if I could help you?” she asked. “What if I could make your transcripts better reflect your true performance and, in the process, give you a better chance to qualify for the university? Would you be interested?”

  “How is that possible? Wouldn’t that be dishonest?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, “not in your case. You’ve been an excellent student. I would just be making a few changes to reflect that and to guarantee that you’d be accepted at one of the UC campuses.”

  “Really, you could guarantee that?”

  “Yes, because I know exactly what the university is looking for.”

  “This is a surprise,” I said.

  “Shall I go ahead and make the appropriate changes?” she asked.

  “I need to think about this.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, “but either way, this conversation is strictly confidential. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, perfectly. Thank you.”

  For the next two days, I could think of nothing else. Had Mrs. Golden made the same offer to Sal? Had I stumbled across a scheme to give undeserving students like me access to better colleges and universities? I was nervous about going back to Sal with my questions, but it was Sal who came to me to find out how things had gone.

  “Mrs. Golden said that she could change my transcripts,” I said. “Do you know if she really can?”

  “Yeah, she really can. She has the access because the school trusts her.”

  “And she can make my transcript acceptable to the UC?”

  “She gave me a guarantee: if UC San Diego didn’t accept me, she would return my money.”

  “She never mentioned money. How much did you have to pay her?”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “That’s major money! Where did you get a thousand dollars?”

  “I borrowed the money from my cousin. It’s worth it to get into a good college.”

  “How did you find out about this?”

  He hesitated. “It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I need to think it over.”

  *****

  Sal and I were the last students in the journalism class that afternoon. “Coming?” he asked, as he packed up to leave.

  “I need to finish this article,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

  A few minutes after Sal had left, Miss Dudley said, “I have to leave too, Wes. I can’t let you stay.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Can I talk to you on your way out?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Walk me to my car.” She took her briefcase and locked the classroom door behind us.

  “Remember when I said I wanted to be the school crime reporter?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling.

  “I’ve discovered a crime.”

  “Here at Murrow?”

  “Yes, ma’am, here at Murrow.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Mrs. Golden has been changing the transcripts of some students so they can get into college.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I met with her and she offered to do it for me.”

  “Did you accept?”

  “I told her I needed to think about it.”

  “Do you know other students for whom she’s done this?”

  “Yes. The student who told me paid her a thousand dollars to change his.”

  “Whom have you told?”

  “Only you.”

  We had reached her car, a red convertible. She put her briefcase in the back seat, alongside her athletic bag, and turned to face me. “How can I help you?”

  She was dazzling as usual in her wrap-around sunglasses. I took a breath. “If I report this, she could lose her job, couldn’t she?”

  “That’s possible,” said Miss Dudley, “but what she’s doing isn’t right.”

  “I know, but if she loses her job, how will she live? She didn’t kill anyone.”

  “She’s also taking money to violate her trust.”

  “Yes, she’s lying for money.”

  “This is your story, Wes. Do you want to pursue it?”

  “I think so, but I don’t know what to do next.”

  “You can walk away.”

  “I thought about that, but she’s cheating some students out of money and others out of their place at a UC.”

  “To prove your case, you’ll need evidence.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “Testimony from other students or a recording of your conversation with her.”

  “Maybe I could get her to change the transcripts back and return the money.”

  “What if it’s too late? S
he may have been doing this a long time.”

  “We could have Mrs. Golden correct what she can and then do something good for the school.”

  “You and I can’t decide that for her.”

  “Maybe I could convince her to admit her crime and to apologize.”

  “That would be a neat trick, but it might be worth a try. Give her the opportunity to turn herself in.”

  “Do you think she would?”

  “She might, but if you approach her with this, she’s going to be highly upset.”

  “I know."

  She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Some people know – I never told your class – but my older brother was a journalist."

  "For a newspaper?"

  "He was a reporter for a national magazine."

  "You said 'was.' Why did he stop?"

  "He was killed in Mexico, reporting on their drug wars."

  "Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Dudley. You must miss him."

  She turned her head, took off her sunglasses, and touched her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, too," she said, putting her sunglasses back on turning to face me again. "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad, but the lesson here is that sometimes being a journalist is dangerous. It takes courage to risk the things that are important to you personally just to report the truth to others."

  "I understand."

  "I hope so, Wes. But look, you're a journalism student, not a journalist. No one is paying you and I don't expect you to take major risks for our high-school paper."

  "I volunteered, and as you said, this is my story."

  “Okay. I'll support you if you decide to pursue it. Gotta vanish!"

  *****

  I had rehearsed the scene in my mind a hundred times, but this was the real thing. “Wes,” said Mrs. Golden, her head cocked slightly to one side, “you seem a little fidgety. Is something wrong?”

  “What you’re doing isn’t right, Mrs. Golden. We both know that.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean that changing transcripts is wrong; it’s cheating.”

  She gasped, her upper lip rising, and said, “I’ll simply deny it, you little …”

  “I’m the crime reporter at Murrow. I have witnesses and I have a sponsor, someone else who knows.” I felt a pain in my thumb from gripping the bottom of my chair.

  She stared at me, breathing audibly through clenched teeth.

  “We both know that you could lose your job for this.”