Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories

By Charles Maxwell

In this debut collection of short stories, Rita Buckley writing as Charles Maxwell, creates characters that are impeccably rendered, and, for the most part, entirely human. In Mr. Chiardi, a class of oddly precocious children launches their increasingly frustrated teacher into space. In The Reconciliation, an estranged husband and wife are brought together by their handsome, well-educated pet, a talking German shepherd named Hunter. In Fresh Fruit, Dr. von Bent is a psychiatrist with a few twists in his own psyche. His colleagues have only slightly more sanity than the patients who spend months in the waiting room seeking their help. In Time for College, Junior has hair on his back and a yen for action. It’s time for him to choose a college, but where he goes and how he makes his decision will leave you laughing out loud. Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories is tautly written and honed to a clarity that can only be achieved by years of studied craftsmanship. The stories in this book are short, quick trips into the funny, quirky world of a writer of great promise. Enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9780615870755

Book preview

About Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories

In this debut collection of short stories, Charles Maxwell’s characters are impeccably rendered and, for the most part, entirely human. In Mr. Chiardi, a class of oddly precocious children launches its increasingly frustrated teacher into space. In The Reconciliation, an estranged husband and wife are brought together by their handsome, well-educated pet, a talking German shepherd named Hunter. In Fresh Fruit, Dr. von Bent is a psychiatrist with a few twists in his own psyche. His colleagues have only slightly more sanity than the patients who spend months in the waiting room seeking their help. Junior has hair on his back and a roving eye for pretty young women. It’s time for him to go to college, but where he goes and how he makes his decision will leave you laughing out loud. Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories is tautly written and honed to a clarity that can only be achieved by years of studied craftsmanship. The stories in this book are short, quick trips into the funny, quirky world of a writer of great promise. Enjoy.

Mr. Chiardi

& Other Stories

________

Charles Maxwell

Love me now, if you have the time.

Rita Buckley

Monkeybicycle, 2010

Mr. Chiardi

& Other Stories

Copyright © 2013 by Charles Maxwell

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Mr. Chiardi is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America

The stories in this work were originally published in Versal 7, Paradigm – The Mitchell Issue, Danse Macabre and Danse Macabre du Jour, Word Catalyst, Bartleby Snopes, The Anemone Sidecar/Ravenna Press, Buzzard Picnic, write this, Calliope, Monkeybicycle, Taj Mahal Review, Otis Nebula, Hobo Pancakes, Storychord, Spectrum CSS, River Poets Journal, The Fine Line, Thumbnail Magazine, Orion headless, SNreview, Wilderness House Literary Review, and FictionDaily. The author wishes to thank the editors of these publications.

ISBN-13: 978-0-615-87075-5

ISBN-10: 0615870759

Cover design by Richard Warren Buckley

My thanks to George L. Blackburn, Richard

Warren Buckley, Martha Birnbaum, Richard E.

Swartz, the late Mae Dolby, and above all,

Vera Swartz and the late Maxwell G. Swartz.

Mr. Chiardi

& Other Stories

Contents

About Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories

Title Page

Epigraph

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Mr. Chiardi

The Reconciliation

Fresh Fruit

A Closer Look

Time for College

The Blizzard

Downhill Run

Mr. Jones

The Nanny

A Party for Darby

Ernest

Scooby Doo

Nothing but Blue Skies

My Father’s Eyes

About the Author

About the Cover Design

Mr. Chiardi

Mr. Chiardi insists on being called Mr. Chiardi. None of the other teachers insist on being called Mr. Chiardi, not even Mrs. Brewer, who teaches fifth grade. Mrs. Brewer wants to be called Charlene. Her teaching assistant wants to be called Mel. The class turtle wants to be called Mark. No one knows why.

Mr. Chiardi is small and nervous and smells like garlic. He looks away when we stare into his eyes. This bothers us.

Mr. Chiardi, why do you always look away when we stare into your eyes?

Why do you always stare into my eyes? he asks.

Because we love you, we reply.

We whistle and applaud, stamp our feet on the floor.

Mr. Chiardi stands behind his desk. He looks over our heads and out the window. After a few minutes, he clears his throat. Open your blue math books to page three, he says. We do as we are told.

________

Mr. Chiardi is single, lives alone. He has no wife, no girlfriend, no boyfriend. Not even a dog. We find this disconcerting. Man is not meant to live alone.

Mr. Chiardi, why do you live alone?

"Who wants to do problem three?

We all wave our arms in the air. Mr. Chiardi smiles with satisfaction.

This is great, he says. We’ll start with Walter, then go right around the room. Okay Walter, go ahead.

Walter wipes his nose with the back of his hand. Are you gay, Mr. Chiardi? Are you queer? Have you ever made love to a frog?

Frank is next. He sticks his pen into the back of Walter’s neck. My turn, he says. Tell me, Mr. Chiardi, do you have high cholesterol? Have you ever been tempted by fate?

Mr. Chiardi breaks out in a sweat. He wipes his forehead with a tissue, then throws it on the floor.

Bravo, we say. We stamp our feet on the floor and applaud.

Mr. Chiardi pounds the desk with his fist. We grow suddenly silent. He holds up our third-grade reading book, the one we all dislike. We’re on page seven, he says. Tommy will start us off.

Tommy sits in the first row, third desk. He comes from a broken home, a home that can’t be fixed. He has emotional problems. I think not, Tommy says. This book is childish and boring. It sucks.

Not only that, we all have important questions to ask.

Have you ever kissed a dumpling?

Have you ever worn latex?

Have you ever played chess with a goat?

Tell us, Mr. Chiardi. We need to know.

Mr. Chiardi puts his head on his desk and weeps.

Tommy gets up and stands beside him. He strokes the bald spot on the back of his head. Don’t worry, Mr. Chiardi, he says. We’re here to help.

________

Mr. Chiardi spends too much time alone. This worries us. That’s why we all chipped in and bought him a small dog. We gave it to him at the annual parent-teacher-student picnic.

A dog… he said. He held the leash as far away from his body as possible. The parents, arranged in a semicircle around him, smiled and clapped. We watched them very closely for any signs of madness.

The dog was the size of a shoebox, covered with stringy black hair. He strained at the end of his leash, barking and choking. Yip yip errghh. Yip yip errghh. Yip yip errghh. This went on forever. Mr. Chiardi broke out in a sweat.

His name is William, we said. He’s a demented half-breed.

A what?

A true survivor.

The parents nodded their heads in agreement.

A survivor?