The Pushcart book of short stories : the best short stories from a quarter-century of the Pushcart prize by Henderson Bill 1941-

Author:Henderson, Bill, 1941-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction anthologies & collections, Modern fiction, Short stories, Short Stories (Anthologies), 20th Century American Literature, Fiction - General, Fiction, American fiction, Anthologies (multiple authors), 20th century, Short stories, American
Publisher: Wainscott, NY : Pushcart Press ; New York : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co.
Published: 2002-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Jack said, “LeRoy Beske swiped her welfare check for over two years. At the end he hid her and then nearly starved her to death and dumped her in your basement when he couldn’t figure out anything more convenient. She was mad at him. Then he made a mistake. He was drunk when he came around here this morning, for the fun of it he tossed a brick through your window. He didn’t figure Eunice right: she was on the balcony when he ambled by a few hours later. He shouted, ‘Hi, little girl!’ to her when he saw her. People on the other side of the house heard him. He probably didn’t recognize her. He shouted, ‘Hi, princess!’ Her rage made her very clean-cut. She had a brick with her because she and I were going to build the barbeque today. Any-

way, Jack finished up in a satisfied, brutal way, “she got him good.

He whispered down at Eleanor, “Another thing. You had better know. I am not a retired priest. I am a retired janitor. What you have here is a retired janitor who has read a lot of history.”

By now Eunice’s voice had almost the lilt and ease of ordinary women s voices. She described the hole widening in the Antarctic ozone. Then she said that Eskimos teeth had caries from eat-ing American-made candy bars. She said Eskimos were listening to reggae, on the ice floes.

Eleanor and Jack lingered on the staircase. Eleanor imagined the Eskimos looking out over the ice-filled water. But she also remembered the watercolor illustration of the hero with his huge bag of rice: he was looking out over water; his robe was painted in baby colors pink and light-blue—his quiver dusty-yellow, and the Sea of Japan was pale green, a shade you might choose for a child s nursery.

1990

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