ORIZABA A Short Story by Thomas Howe "Name?" He stammered when he spoke. "Paul Lawson." "Fill this out, and sit over there." He sat in a wooden chair by a door, scratching his information onto the paper. Above him, a poster yellowed by tobacco shouted: “WORLD AT WAR! SIGN TODAY!” He raked over a shock of blond hair crowning his thin frame. His too-short suit only magnified his leggy height. An hour later a stout man in a uniform beckoned him over to a side room. Paul shook hands with the man, who introduced himself as Sergeant Price. Price offered him a chair and took his forms. "What do you do, Lawson? In the real world, I mean." Lawson shuffled his feet on the linoleum, pausing a moment. "I'm a poet," he said. Price didn't look up. "Not much call for that in the Army, son. Ya see we try to fit every recruit into a job they may be familiar with in civilian life. Why pomes?” He said pomes, one syllable. "I take everyday things and try to assign meaning to them," Lawson said, noticing the large American flag hung on the wall. "Symbology." Price flipped through a folder. "Well, you can't fight Krauts with symbology." He continued to scan paperwork while Lawson sat in silence. "What do you do for money?" Lawson looked down at his delicate hands, cut up and rough. "I deliver flour to places sometimes. Mostly to bakeries." "You deliver to Max's on Forty-Third?" Lawson rubbed his face. "I think so. Sometimes. Can't remember."
© 2014 Thomas Howe
"That place has great cakes. The wife, she goes there to get dessert for her coffee klatch on Thursdays." "Mm," Paul said. "Yeah, it's like a reading club with her girlfriends, or some such. I try to steer clear." Price's face lit up. "Actually, they were just reading a book of pomes." He glanced at the ceiling. "What was the name of the fella. Fairly recent. I think she said he was lost at sea or something." Paul looked up at the pudgy man. "Hart Crane?" "That's it,� Price blurted, startling the younger man. Paul recovered, nodding. "People believe he committed suicide. It's been said that he was...homosexual," he said. Price squeezed his tie at the knot. "Well, I don't know nothing about that. I'll have to ask my wife." Paul took to staring at the floor. Price scribbled in his folder, then handed it to him. "Take this down the hall to the office marked 'Fitness Review.' They'll schedule your physical." # Paul did as he was told, and they scheduled him for the following day. He left the recruiting station and wandered down toward the Village, hearing a saxophonist playing in the street. He drifted through the alleyways, women hanging their wash in the September air. It was the first sign of autumn, mixed with the smell of leaves and wood stoves. He saw a man on a stoop and nodded to him. He was smoking a cigarette in an undershirt despite the chill. "Hey, don't I know you?" the man said, taking a puff of his smoke. Paul stopped. "Hey. I don't think so." The young man squinted at him, his black hair falling into eyes already filled with smoke and sunlight. "You a friend of Mickey?" he mumbled around his cigarette. "No, sorry. I'm Paul," he said, and held out his hand.
Š 2014 Thomas Howe
"I'm Timothy," he said, shaking Paul’s hand. He slid over and Paul sat down. Timothy held out a tin flask of whiskey and Paul took a long swallow. "You been to the Parlor?" Timothy asked. "Once or twice," Paul said quietly. He knew who went to the Parlor. He looked at the man's tanned arms, bound in short sleeves. "Aren't you cold?" Timothy laughed. "Not really. I live for fall. It fits me." Paul nodded. "Me too. They say that fall stands for melancholy. I wrote a poem on it once." Timothy snapped his fingers, his eyes widening. "That's where I've seen you. You read your poetry at the Windsor one night." Paul smiled. "You were there?" "Yes. I remember it. 'Trains bearing the name of my ancestors, dusk stealing my words.' Good stuff." Paul reddened. "Thanks. Actually, I have a friend that wants to publish me, when I have enough for a book." Timothy stood up. "Listen, you wanna come up? I'll make coffee." He stretched, putting his hands against the small of his back, his chest puffed out. "I am getting a little cold." Paul followed him into the building. # A man in a white coat addressed the line of men in their underwear. "You lot will report here on Friday. You'll be bussed to Fort Dix for basic training. Be here on time. Don't make us come find you." Paul left, the chilled air brushing his face. The sky was gray and empty. He took the subway, the odor of burnt tar and orange leaves in his nostrils.
Š 2014 Thomas Howe
He stood by the river and the Brooklyn Bridge hunched over him, cars speeding over its span. He spotted a steamship headed out, a white dot on the East River, its stacks like smoldering cigarettes. He walked up the bridge, cars and horns clanging in his ears. He pulled a leaf of paper out of his jacket pocket, its scribbles in pencil barely legible:
Cars that move with light and dark-Steel and spans and stale seas smothered in sunset. I moved the pieces on the board, but My pawns were blown to hell The moves no longer making sense
He moved to the railing, a taxi honking at him as he stumbled backwards. He looked down into the whitecaps. He pulled the tin flask from his pocket and the poem slipped from his hand, flapping away birdlike, disappearing under the bridge. "Goodbye, everybody," he whispered. He finished the whiskey, thinking of sweat-slicked tanned arms. No one saw him jump. No one even looked for him. Even a sergeant that had his name on a bus roster shrugged it off, thinking someone had made a mistake.
Š 2014 Thomas Howe