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    Opening the Gate; Short Stories & Poetry
    Opening the Gate; Short Stories & Poetry
    Opening the Gate; Short Stories & Poetry
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Opening the Gate; Short Stories & Poetry

    By Wes Rehberg

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    About this ebook

    Opening the Gate is a collection of five short stories and five poems by author Wes Rehberg, some which include fictionalized biographical elements and as well draw from his experience as a print journalist and social justice activist. Titles of the short stories are "The Enduring," "The Fog," "Scooter," "Tina's Nicaragua Story," and "Jail Birds." Two of the poems have appeared in print and online editions of the literary journal, The Rusty Nail. "Alien Bones" and "Tick Tock." The short story "Scooter" appeared in eFiction magazine.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWes Rehberg
    Release dateSep 12, 2012
    ISBN9781301077724
    Opening the Gate; Short Stories & Poetry
    Author

    Wes Rehberg

    Wes Rehberg is a long-time social justice activist, writer and journalist, and also recently produced video art and documentaries. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy, interpretation and culture from Binghamton University in NY. He has begun fiction and poetry writing as well, publishing in these areas. He is married to Eileen Rehberg, who has collaborated with him on several projects.- this is his third book, the first in a series of novels.

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      Book preview

      Opening the Gate; Short Stories & Poetry - Wes Rehberg

      OPENING

      THE

      GATE

      Short Stories and Poetry

      By Wes Rehberg

      Opening the Gate

      Wes Rehberg

      Copyright 2012 by Wes Rehberg

      Smashwords Edition

      Opening the Gate: Short Stories & Poetry

      All Rights Reserved

      ISBN: 9781301077724

      Disclaimer: Any resemblance to persons living or dead in stories or poems is unintentional. Characters are fictional products of the author’s imagination and some places are too.

      To Eileen

      and to the survivors

      CONTENTS

      Dedication:

      About Opening the Gate:

      The Short Stories:

      The Enduring:

      The Fog:

      Scooter:

      Tina’s Nicaragua Story:

      Jail Birds:

      The Poems:

      Alien Bones

      The Automat:

      The Smile Hasn’t Left:

      No Wind, No Keel:

      Tick Tock:

      About the Author:

      THE SHORT STORIES

      THE ENDURING

      Cedric Malcolm drove his rust-colored pickup over the broken asphalt at the bottom of the hill, the camper in the truckbed rocking the vehicle from side to side. The asphalt gave way to a mix of gravel and dirt in a rutted series of steep upward bends. Wet days, like this one, it was gravel and mud.

      Damn, Malcolm swore, steering wheel jerking his hands as the truck pitched and yawed and strained with the camper’s weight.

      He had just retrieved the pickup camper from the edge of cleared woodland off another rural road where he worked with a logging operation, just after he was released two years ago from the New York maximum security prison in Elmira where he spent 11 years convicted of manslaughter in the death of his brother. It was his home until a year ago when he negotiated a deal with two elderly sisters his age for a vacant single-wide mobile home on this road, Claw Valley Pike. The logging operation ceased since then, the land was sold, and the new owner wanted the camper removed.

      First time up this hill, he almost passed the aged small frame house on the right where the reputedly ornery sisters lived, obscure behind the beech trees, the evergreens, the thick brush, even in winter when foliage was gone. Across the way, a swamp nested where ducks once dwelled. No more. Muck and mire took over, with still enough seeping water from a spring for tadpoles in the ditch alongside the road, for cattails on its edge. When weather warmed, Malcolm could hear the awakening peepers at dusk and into the night, shrill waves of sound. Winter it would be coyotes and owls, and the occasional shriek of their prey.

      At the hilltop, in the entryway to the rutted drive that led to the sisters’ house, a rusted white mailbox leaned backward, likely shoved in that direction by a snowplow. Beyond, Claw Valley Pike narrowed downhill to a tight two lanes, When lumber trucks roared through, Malcolm pulled over to the side away from the ditch into the blackberry brush that lined the road. He’d tap the peak of his ball cap, greeting the drivers. They’d wave back.

      Bastard, he’d mouth with a grin.

      Under the mailbox hung a faded wood sign that said Perkins. Perkins, Malcolm now knew, stood for sisters Ella and Marie, and more recently, for their tall, gangly and somewhat backward and very troubled nephew, Elijah. The sisters, usually ferociously protective and obstinately private, took in Elijah reluctantly when their brother Sam and his wife Margaret unexpectedly left town. The couple, owners of the single-wide Malcolm occupied, dropped Elijah off as they always did on Sunday on their way to the Crossroads Community Church of the Redeemer, about 5 miles away on old Route 71. Ella told Malcom the story when he negotiated lodging in the single-wide.

      ‘Y’all doin’ OK here?’ Sam asked me then Ella said. ‘Can I get you anything from the grocery.’

      I said, ‘I think we’ve got what we need, Sam, Don’t be gone long.’ I had no idea they were taking off.

      The two never showed up at church. Two days later, I filed a missing persons report, which led to a search for my brother’s truck. They could identify it by a sign on the doors that said Perkins Contracting.

      Not that Sam did much independent work contractors do - his business skills weren't all that reliable, Ella told Malcolm. He generally worked for other contractors or helped in logging operations around here.

      Two weeks later, border police reported they crossed at Niagara Falls into Canada, destination Alberta, she said.

      Ella had then reached for a key to the single-wide, hanging on a nail on the rough-milled kitchen wndow frame. She put it into Malcolm’s palm and smiled. Malcolm’s hands were as heavily calloused as hers. She liked that.

      Margaret didn’t really want to leave Claw Valley, or Elijah with us - we never really were friendly, she contnued. And, as me and Marie worried, who knew what Elijah might do when he found out she and Sam abandoned him.

      Of course we had to take him in.

      The other sister, Marie, later told Malcolm He makes me uneasy, rocking back and forth and talking to himself like he does. He seems to be everywhere.

      For now, we put him in the attic room, Marie said.. We had to turn the heat on,

      The sisters, both wirey and wily, inherited the house when their parents, Jason and Melba Perkins, were killed one winter in driving sleet and snow when their antiquated Ford station wagon slid off Old Route 71 into the frigid Susquehanna River. They had moved to Claw Valley when

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