Beverly Carol Lucey's three flashes in Literary Potpourri

I get up, remember it is rubbish day and decide that if I can just throw out the trash I can get clear and get going. That's how it starts.

I feel a little bored, just a little restless. The night before I had this little thought that the everydayness of being middle-aged, being known, being expected to be in the same old places by people who expected me to just jump to it at certain predictable times was curling around me like the tendrils of those grape vines choking my day lilies out front. I never pretended to be a gardener.

It looks rather ordinary to anyone out walking a dog, I suppose. I bring out the bags and bags of food wrappers, take out cartons, and general junk that piles up over a week, put it on the correct side of the driveway, then go back for the recyclables. I lug the cans in one bag, glass and paper in their separate brown bags just the way the new town policy reads. Underneath the stairs I find a stash of newspapers crushed behind a big Coleman cooler. The old headlines seemed so important at the time, but the world has moved on to newer outrages and political embarrassments by now, so I stop worrying about old news and drag that spider webbed shopping bag full of papers outside, adding it to the others.

Next I decide there must be lots of stuff in that old cellar that wešll never use so I start piling up broken beach chairs, empty paint buckets, two leaky rubber rafts, rusted tools. No one has revved up that chain saw in years, or the band saw. Wooden cross-country skis are a pain, what with the different colored waxes and all. Bye, bye, long useless sticks and poles.

I toss in a dog carrying case, a broken bike, boxes of books.

And then I just keep going...our new skis, my husbandšs weight bench, exercycler, his new mountain bike, all the garden tools, a huge glass jar of chutney I made one sweaty August, and an industrial strength wet-dry vacuum cleaner.

The driveway is getting crowded and people stop to ask if this is a tag sale. I say it surely is and go back through the cellar up into the house and start bringing out all my kitchen stuff. I take pictures off the wall, bring out all the lamps. Cars stop and one lady, apparently trying to help, begins to tell people how much things are. She starts collecting money for me in one of the baskets I picked up during an auction at Bilodeaušs in South Deerfield years ago. I had tossed it on the pile at her feet a minute before.

The phone rings while I am loading the boxes from the pantry into bigger boxes so I unplug the phone and add it to the pile.

People begin to ask for things: "Got any records?" "Got any cloisonne?" "Got any brass or copper?" "Keys?" I invite them in. They get some good bargains, let me tell you. The two marble-topped tables are gone before I turn around.

Around three ošclock it is all over. The house is pretty well empty, upstairs and down. In my bedroom I find a canvas bag way in the back of my closet. Two volunteers from the local Homeless Center have followed me and stand around while I pack three days worth of stuff. I leave them opening drawers and go on down stairs. I yell up over my shoulder that they can have at the rest...both sides of the closet, husbandsšs stuff too, yes, surely. That helpful lady with my basket gives me a wad of bills that I figure Išll count out later. She says she had a great time and she loves the owl print I let her pick out for free. The trashmen come, swear really loud in case I can hear them, and take what is left.

The refrigerator is empty because of the thirsty, hungry helpers and a couple of customers, but I put the one Lean Cuisine Chicken Parmesan left behind in the freezer out on the counter with a note:

Supper in a box. No other boxes left.

Išm off,

Me

home
	Three Flashes by Beverly Carol Lucey TRASH DAY I get up, remember it is rubbish day and decide that if I can just throw out the trash I can get clear and get going. That's how it starts. I feel a little bored, just a little restless. The night before I had this little thought that the everydayness of being middle-aged, being known, being expected to be in the same old places by people who expected me to just jump to it at certain predictable times was curling around me like the tendrils of those grape vines choking my day lilies out front. I never pretended to be a gardener. It looks rather ordinary to anyone out walking a dog, I suppose. I bring out the bags and bags of food wrappers, take out cartons, and general junk that piles up over a week, put it on the correct side of the driveway, then go back for the recyclables. I lug the cans in one bag, glass and paper in their separate brown bags just the way the new town policy reads. Underneath the stairs I find a stash of newspapers crushed behind a big Coleman cooler. The old headlines seemed so important at the time, but the world has moved on to newer outrages and political embarrassments by now, so I stop worrying about old news and drag that spider webbed shopping bag full of papers outside, adding it to the others. Next I decide there must be lots of stuff in that old cellar that wešll never use so I start piling up broken beach chairs, empty paint buckets, two leaky rubber rafts, rusted tools. No one has revved up that chain saw in years, or the band saw. Wooden cross-country skis are a pain, what with the different colored waxes and all. Bye, bye, long useless sticks and poles. I toss in a dog carrying case, a broken bike, boxes of books. And then I just keep going...our new skis, my husbandšs weight bench, exercycler, his new mountain bike, all the garden tools, a huge glass jar of chutney I made one sweaty August, and an industrial strength wet-dry vacuum cleaner. The driveway is getting crowded and people stop to ask if this is a tag sale. I say it surely is and go back through the cellar up into the house and start bringing out all my kitchen stuff. I take pictures off the wall, bring out all the lamps. Cars stop and one lady, apparently trying to help, begins to tell people how much things are. She starts collecting money for me in one of the baskets I picked up during an auction at Bilodeaušs in South Deerfield years ago. I had tossed it on the pile at her feet a minute before. The phone rings while I am loading the boxes from the pantry into bigger boxes so I unplug the phone and add it to the pile. People begin to ask for things: "Got any records?" "Got any cloisonne?" "Got any brass or copper?" "Keys?" I invite them in. They get some good bargains, let me tell you. The two marble-topped tables are gone before I turn around. Around three ošclock it is all over. The house is pretty well empty, upstairs and down. In my bedroom I find a canvas bag way in the back of my closet. Two volunteers from the local Homeless Center have followed me and stand around while I pack three days worth of stuff. I leave them opening drawers and go on down stairs. I yell up over my shoulder that they can have at the rest...both sides of the closet, husbandsšs stuff too, yes, surely. That helpful lady with my basket gives me a wad of bills that I figure Išll count out later. She says she had a great time and she loves the owl print I let her pick out for free. The trashmen come, swear really loud in case I can hear them, and take what is left. The refrigerator is empty because of the thirsty, hungry helpers and a couple of customers, but I put the one Lean Cuisine Chicken Parmesan left behind in the freezer out on the counter with a note: Supper in a box. No other boxes left. Išm off, Me © 2003 Beverly Carol Lucey
	BY THE NUMBERS "Five words," he said. "It's all you get." "I need more." "Sorry. You just used up three. Better make the next two count." Bon closed her eyes so Raleigh wouldn't see how much she hated him. She wondered if there was a two-word key she could use to set free the man from this monster of madness that had taken over. Raleigh's medication had floated out of his pocket five days earlier when their canoe tipped over. The ten-day wilderness trip brought them too far from anywhere to save either of them. Unless she could come up with two good words. Remember when Marco Island The kids Our plans Your book. Finally Bon tried out loud, "Love me?" "No. Good try. But maybe it will hurt less this way," Raleigh whispered as he slowly ran the sharpened knife along her calf, in the first of many delicate slices. © 2003 Beverly Carol Lucey
	GLASS HOUSE As it turns out, the sound of breaking glass isn't just one sound. I don't pay attention, I guess. Or, at least, not enough. Otherwise, I wouldn't have stood at the sink using my Scrubber-on-a stick to orchestrate how that damn blue jay went after our puppy this morning. I should have stayed at the table, talking to my husband after supper, tamping up crumbs from the blueberry cake with my index finger, then used the finger to do the blue jay swoop and peck. That way, the half empty bottle of brandy on the counter I had dusted off around noon before macerating the peaches for the neighborhood brunch this weekend wouldn't have taken a swan dive onto the tile floor making a heavy splitting sticky sound. Four big pieces and the dusky smell of Armagnac is not a catastrophe. I should have put it away when I was done. I know that. But I didn't. I should have worn shoes while cleaning it all up, but then I hate shoes and never wear them in the house. If he hadn't yelled at me from the den, "You're going to hurt yourself," while I was backing up, holding the four pieces carefully out in front of me, reaching for that paper bag I'd jammed under the blender a few days ago, I wouldn't have jumped and my elbow wouldn't have met with the carafe of the coffee maker. I should have realized that the explosive yet soft sound was a sharp silica version of a chrysanthemum firework blooming at my feet, but I couldn't just stand there. He'd already told me once, twice, a downright host of times, that I was on my own regarding danger. He said, "You are too careless. I can't stand to watch you. I will take you to the hospital when the worst things happen, but you will get no sympathy from me." Since he hadn't seen this part yet, I figured I could very quietly reach down and get the dust pan without moving much. Right now, the sound of glass is like crushed ice. If only it were cold it might numb my feet which are bleeding a little (not too much yet) but at least I am alone in the kitchen and can take care of it myself. The sound of glass being swept up into a dustpan is like the muffled skitter of bug carcasses and nail clippings. My back and arms shiver and goosebump, as if the wind has picked up, but it's only me in my tiny chaos. By now I've shoved my red sticky feet into my rubber garden shoes so he won't see the tracks I've made if he comes back in the room too soon for a snack. I don't mind so much when things break. So far, it's never been a chandelier on my head, or the spear of an icicle thwunking from the roof turning me into a brain kebob. The sound of glass being sucked up into a small canister vacuum cleaner reminds me of the uneven pinging of tumbling gems I saw once when a lapidary explained how he made sharp stones soft and and silky and warm, easy to touch. He gave me a rounded rock that fit my palm perfectly. He called it my harmony stone. I can picture my husband in the den, white hot and furious over the loss of the brandy (VSOP and a gift from his brother), flicking from station to station as though the remote were a magic fire stick. He is sure I am a threat to organized society, the society in which one must always take care, and be wary of possible threat. I think it is harder to be him. At last, it looks as though everything in the kitchen is pretty much back in order. I've tweezed a few shards from my right foot pad. Ting, ting, into the bucket. The lavender ointment I keep at hand feels soft and cool. If I hold my breath, there isn't one sound around me. © 2003 Beverly Carol Lucey § § § Originally from New England, Beverly Carol Lucey writes now from the Land of Lard and Peaches. After a lifetime in the northeast she chose to follow her husband south. Flannery O'Connor knew the line from the old song was true-"A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Four stories are anthologized in We Teach Them All (Stenhouse Press, Maine) Two slices are in the 1999 edition of The Flint River Review; "Birthday Tape" is in the winter 2000 print edition of Moxie. "Worry Circuit" appeared in the Spring Edition (33) of Quality Women's Fiction, 2001 (UK) Wild Strawberries ('03) Her online presence is getting fat: Zoetrope All Story Extra has published: "Gift Wrap" (July 2000) "Scissors, Paper, Rock"(January 2001); "Waiting for the Flight," flash fiction in Vestal Review,was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. (2001) Other work can be found at CollectedStories.com, flashquake, and the winter edition ('03) of Would That It Were. Literary Potpourri has taken a shine to Ms. Lucey. This mid-month surprise will total 4, 5, and 6 appearances. Surprise. She lives with her husband and black standard poodles, the elegant Miss Bessie Smith and the slightly trashy Lillian deLuna. They are adapting to a suburb outside of Little Rock, AR, after five years in GA. Lucey loves R&B. As the other song goes, "Wild women don't get the blues." Reach her at: WordsNest@sbcglobal.net .