07/16/2011 - A little late.

Here's last week's sadly overdue posting.  I decided to break from fiction and post something from correspondence instead.  This is a letter I wrote to my mother for Mother's Day this year.

Dear Mom;

One day each year we're supposed to celebrate one of the most amazing things ever, mothers.

Everyone has one, so they're common but somehow each one is extraordinary. They carry us around inside their bodies for about nine months, then in their arms for years and in their hearts forever.

A mother watches over you when you sleep, feeds you when you wake, and guides your hungry mind with answers to incessant questions, like "Why?".


Sometimes, we're angry or frustrated because our mothers treat us like children, but the fact is we are children until we're not, and mothers will know when that is long before we will.

Mothers are never perfect; they have flaws, go tilting at windmills, chasing phantoms and delusions just like any of the rest of us.  But they have the most powerful incentive to return to reality, their children.

The fact that any of those children anywhere ever makes it to adulthood is a powerful testament to the power of her love to overcome mountains of poop, overturned cereal bowls, embarrassing public utterances, panicked moments in shopping centers where the child has wandered off to play with toys, adolescent rebellion, and every other torture intentional or not.

For all those little miracles, we've set aside this day.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  You've more than earned it.

Love,

Your Son

© 2011 Matt Converse - All rights reserved.

For a Drink of Whiskey

Here it is, my second installment of my promise.  I'm working my way through writing a million words and I will post them here each week.

This is a little different.  I wanted to capture the style of spoken story-telling and a little western flair.

For a Drink of Whiskey

 I should tell this story from the real beginning, but the truth is I wasn't there, so I'll have to start with where I walked in and carry on as best I can to the end. I know, I know, but you want to hear it, you got to listen to me tell it first, ain't ya?

See, I'd discovered that morning that we were short on coffee and flour, and there was a powerful need for a new blanket for the bunk-house, so I'd decided to ride into town and get some supplies. Naturally it had been a while since I'd been to town an' along the way my whistle decided it wanted wettin' which meant a stop at the saloon. After I'd ridden in, I hitched ol' Burt – that's my horse, see. He don't like to be called Horse, so we settled on Burt, and then he got old... and where was I? Oh right, I hitched ol' Burt to the rail, slipped him a carrot and went inside for a nickel’s worth of whiskey and that's where I come in.

Now you always hear in fancy stories how a hush sets in over a saloon when a man steps in with every head turnin' to the door. Well, there was a hush alrighty, but weren't one head lookin' at me, no sir. They's all a-staring at the two fellers over at the poker table, standin' there with guns drawn. I knew them fellers too. Stinky Pete – we called him that on account he used to work with hogs back East and to hear him tell it, weren't no stink greater on this here Earth than a hog farm – and Clive, a feller from up Montana way what owned the livery stable; liked his whiskey, whores and cards.

Pipe down, now! I'm getting' to it. Got no patience, I tell you what.

Now I don't know what set them off, the whiskey, someone cheatin' at cards or if one of them boys was sweet on the saloon-gal, and I don't think I'll ever rightly know. I didn't see the draw and weren't neither of them boys what you might call gunslingers, but them pistols was out and they were ready to bark. Boy howdee did them pistols roar! Stinky Pete now he had him a Colt, and he was a-rippin' bullets out as fast as he could fan the hammer whilst Clive was busy getting low to the sawdust and trying to fire his trusty Smith and Wesson.

There was smoke, and power-flash. Cards from the table was flyin' up in the air, chips hitting the floor and some saloon gal was a hollerin' fit to wake the dead. No, sonny, I don't know her name. Ain't never seed her before or since. Well, that's just too bad, ain't it? You gonna let me finish this or what?

So there's Stinky blazing away and doin' somethin' terrible to the wall what was behind where Clive was standin', Clive rollin' 'round on the floor pulling the trigger on his pistol as fast as he can. Someone – my money says Clive – hit the big ol' mirror behind the bar making it shatter all over everything in the room, and Mikey – the barkeep, see – he drops the mug of beer he's carryin' so fast I think the mug hit the ground a week before the beer, so's he can take cover behind the bar. Fellers at the bar are clutching their hats and trying to hide down behind the spittoon, and there's me – just a-standin' in that doorway.

Right about the time my head starts to thinkin' maybe I ought to do something my shoulder starts to squawkin' and lightin' off Fourth o' July rockets 'cause I'm hit and that just makes me mad. I slap leather, and come up with a fist full of iron and I start doin' my level best to add a bunch more bullets to the mess already whizzin' round that saloon. Hand me that sifter, now. Good lad.

Well, weren't none of us hittin' much – 'cept maybe my shoulder now – but we're sure having a grand ol' time tryin' when up comes Mickey from behind the bar with his scatter-gun an' he pumps a load of shot into the ceiling. Never woulda happened if he'd been aimin' that cannon, but sure as I am standin' here now, he hits the rope holding up the ol' wagon wheel they use as a chandelier and down it comes! That big slab o' wood, iron and burning candles comes slammin' down, whacks Stinky on the arms before settin' him on his keister. Then it sort of rolls over, drops a load of burning candles on Clive who commences to a hollerin' and cryin' about bein' on fire 'cause all the whiskey he'd been drinkin' made him light up like a torch.

As if there weren't enough misery for one day, Clive drops his pistol and it discharges the last round, and that big ol' chunk o' lead must've had my name on it 'cause – POW! – it hits me. And that, sonny, is why they call me Three-Finger-Finnegan. Oh, and one more thing... never did get that whiskey.

Now trundle on off and ring the bell to call them cow-pokes in for beans and bacon.

© 2011 Matt Converse – All rights reserved.