Collisions and Other Stories

By Jesse Greever

Jesse S. Greever's short stories have been worldwide bestsellers, and now they're collected in one volume for the first time! From romance to humor to mother/daughter relationships, Greever's short stories capture a wide variety of emotions and experiences.

A SUMMER WEDDING
In the Summer of Love, one young man discovers both love and heartbreak. Flash Fiction.

5
Rufus thinks he's received a desperate plea to rescue a pants inspector who is being held hostage in a garment factory. Upon discovery of the truth, it may be Rufus' own life that needs alterations.

THE ANNEX
A group of friends/co-workers take advantage of being moved offsite, from their company's main building to an abandoned annex, as an opportunity to relax and put in very little time doing actual work. The good times seem to have no end until a sudden revelation about one member of the group has them realizing that the starkness of reality has a way of intruding on the fun.

RUMSPRINGA
Excessive drinking. Chain-smoking. Methamphetamine addiction.
Such is the life of Wilma Burrows, a woman whose lifetime has been marred by an inexplicable string of bad decisions. Scarred and shattered, she tries to manage each day as it comes, desperate to keep herself from plunging into the abyss, but the demons are always a few short steps behind her. Sixteen years ago, one of her many indiscretions resulted in the birth of pure and untainted innocence. But that shining glimmer of decency was whisked away, only to fade away as a distant memory. But some days, even the most faded memories have a way of reemerging in unexpected ways. And for Wilma, that day is today.

COLLISIONS
Lewis Grafton lives a life of routine and isolation. His days are spent in front of a computer, shut out from the rest of the world, except for his late night order of "the usual" at Manuel's Serrano Bar & Grill. But, tonight, an encounter at Manuel's will be anything BUT "the usual.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Untreed Reads
• Release date: Jan 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611877922

Book preview

Collisions

Collisions and Other Stories

By Jesse S. Greever

Copyright 2015 by Jesse S. Greever

Cover Copyright 2015 by Untreed Reads Publishing

Cover Design by Ginny Glass

The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

www.untreedreads.com

Collisions and Other Stories

Jesse S. Greever

A Summer Wedding

The wedding was unofficial, but in a certain sense, it was as real as anything my preadolescent mind could conceive. The tree house that my father and I had built over the course of the previous summer vacation was large enough to provide an impromptu sanctuary for the festivities.

A sweet summer breeze whistled through the cracks of our far-from-expert carpentry, and provided an eerie aria that served as a perfect processional as my oldest friend Burt escorted Naomi down the narrow aisle. The bride wore faded jeans, raggedly cut off at the knees; a hand-me-down Led Zeppelin t-shirt tied up above her waist; and a makeshift veil fashioned from the netting of a beekeeper’s face covering.

Her radiance rivaled the midday, early summer sun.

Robby was my best man. We had been best friends since the day he beat the living tar out of a rabid bully who threatened to send me to the hospital if I didn’t fork over the slug of quarters in my pocket. Robby was suspended for a week. I visited him every day of his incarceration. We had been inseparable ever since.

Robby handed me the costume-jewelry ring I had pilfered from my mother’s dresser. He shot me a toothy grin, and whispered, Where you guys goin’ on your honeymoon?

I replied in a hushed tone. "Wouldn’t you like to know."

Curly DuPree, fledgling hippie, and only son of the local Methodist preacher, stood at the front of the tree house. As Naomi took my arm, Curly stepped close and spoke with vibrant mirth. Let’s pop the cork on this thing, shall we?

Naomi nodded and then we turned toward each other. Her chestnut eyes were still visible underneath the veil, and for a brief slice of time, I saw everything. I envisioned our life together, the house with the white picket fence and Astroturf lawn, our two boys and three girls, and our harvest-gold appliances, complete with Maytag washer and dryer.

All was right with our little tree house world.

The vows were simple.

Do you, Naomi, take Andy to be your man, and hang out with him every day, and occasionally give him a good night kiss?

Naomi’s eyes narrowed. Okay, but only once a week.

Do you, Andy, take Naomi to be your chick, and make sure nobody messes with her, and every once in a while, pay for a hot dog and fries at Shimmy’s Shakes?

Yeah, as long as we share the fries. I got bills to pay. I shot her a sideways glance.

Curly placed his arms on our shoulders and turned us toward our two witnesses. Well, dig it. You guys are, like, married.

*

We lived our separate lives in wedded bliss for three of the most wonderful months of my life. The war in Viet Nam trudged along its terrible course in a distant land that didn’t seem quite real. Richard Nixon proclaimed his not-a-crook-ness to the world, but none of that mattered in our little corner of the universe. We carried on our daily routine of breakfast on the back patio of her family’s beige-sided split-level ranch. Once a week, we snuck into the movie theater to catch the latest flick, and on rare occasion, we didn’t even get caught.

As summer faded into fall, our wedded bliss faded into the oblivion of whimsical fantasies of early teenage years. No rancorous divorce proceedings, no attorneys. An unusually shy kiss on the cheek one night in early