The Principle of Interchange and Other Stories

By P. V. LeForge

This is the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition of P. V. LeForge's first collection of stories. Choirboys await the return of a Mexican bandit to their church--despite the fact that he has been dead for 100 years. A two-bit comedian is inhabited by the soul of his agent--who he has just murdered. A dying man receives a visit from a grandson he has never seen. An obsessed police inspector rents the apartment of a young woman who has committed the most terrible of crimes. An old drunk in Alaska invents a super alter-ego to battle the bigotry and unfeeling he sees around him. These and other characters and situations come vibrantly alive in this finely wrought collection from a talented writer and storyteller. In locales as diverse as Florida, Alaska, Panama, Mexico, India, and China, P.V. LeForge paints a picture of life that is both rich and unique.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Bay Books
• Release date: Nov 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310675881

P. V. LeForge

P. V. LeForge lives on a horse farm in north Florida with his wife Sara Warner, who is a dressage rider and trainer. Their stable includes Fabayoso, who was Southeastern Regional Stallion Champion, and his colt Freester, who was Reserve Champion USDF Horse of the Year in 2011.LeForge is also an e-book formatter who can be found on Mark's List. He enjoys formatting Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Drama.LeForge's other books of poetry and fiction can be obtained in ebook and paperback at most on-line book outlets. In addition to writing and doing farm chores, he enjoys songwriting and target archery.

Book preview

The Principle of Interchange

and Other Stories

(25th Anniversary Edition)

By P. V. LeForge

Copyright 1990-2015 by P. V. LeForge

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with someone else, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. 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 favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

There is no note on any instrument that has not been played before. That said, the stories in The Principle of Interchange are sheer fiction. Any resemblance of names, places, characters, and incidents to actual persons, places, and events results from the relationship which the world must always bear to works of this kind.

Published by Black Bay Books

Books for people who like to think about what they read.

Books by P. V. LeForge

Fiction

The Principle of Interchange and Other Stories (1990)

Hell and High Water (with Anne Petty) (2012)

Museum Piece (with Anne Petty) (2013)

Time Piece (with Anne Petty) (2014)

The Notebooks of William Wilson (2015)

Book Stories (2017)

Poetry

The Secret Life of Moles (1992)

Getting a Good Read (2002)

Ways to Reshape the Heart (2008)

My Wife Is a Horse (2009)

Drama

Little Saigon and Other Plays (2016)

To Janis Ian and P. F. Sloan

(who inspired my early efforts with their own)

Table of Contents

Vandals

Silk and Other Fine Things

Railroad Days

The Dead Hunter

The Principle of Interchange

Killing the Assassin

Muffy

The Sexless Ones

Nameless

Metamorphosis of an Elvis Presley Impersonator

Abe Mott

Souls

Action

In Canton

The Bowl of Sunshine

The Man Who Wrote Letters to Comic Books

About the Author

Vandals

The church of Santa Teresa de las Carnaciones stood behind crenellated walls on the eastern edge of the Old Section of Rinconada. The Old Section itself was mostly deserted now, the huge, three-story houses empty and boarded up. But it was grand nonetheless. The streets were paved with smooth stones and the houses were surrounded by trellised iron fences wrought in the high style of the rich dons. But the dons were long gone, and with them their traditions. High grass and weeds encroached into the porches and grew through the trellises.

The boy turned toward Santa Teresa. The church, its paint sun-baked into a tired gray, was flanked by a bell tower on the right and a cloister on the left. The three parts were connected through the transepts. The bell tower of the church was very tall and could be seen from almost every house in the Old Section. In front of the church was a spacious lawn with several blossoming mimosa trees, freshly trimmed. Behind it, Miguel caught the murmur of the sea.

Miguel passed through the high iron gate and entered the grounds. He had been told to walk to the left of the chapel, to the long low building that used to serve as cloisters for monks. A high wooden door closed off the building from the outside. The imposing door made Miguel feel insignificant. Had the General once entered this very door? Miguel lifted a heavy brass ring and pounded out a faintly echoing tattoo. Behind him, the bell tower threw a giant shadow across the lawn.

The door opened halfway without a sound, and a boy Miguel’s age or a little older peered out at him. The boy was taller than Miguel, gaunt and red-lipped. He was dressed in dark blue choir robes.

What do you want? asked the boy.

I wish to speak to the choirmaster, said Miguel.

Señor Ramos sees no one at this time of day.

Señor Ramos is the choirmaster?

Yes, but he is busy.

Miguel knew that the boy was lying. He too would have lied in the boy’s place. In Manzanillo it had been Miguel who would look out the door while others asked questions. There, Miguel had been a monitor in the choir. He found that he could lose little by lying and gain much. He had been trusted to keep the younger members of the choir in line. He had also bullied them and made them run errands for him. Sometimes a penitent sinner would come to the wrong door and Miguel or one of his friends would ask him or her to make an offering. With the money, they would buy sodas and cigarettes. The bullying and the tricks had always gone on. Once, Miguel himself had been bullied. It was traditional, and Miguel would no more have thought of altering it than he would have thought of changing the liturgy. And he had learned to make his responses quickly. I was told by my employer to see the choirmaster right away, he said.

Tell me your business and I will relay it to Señor Ramos when I can.

I have a cartload of votive candles around the other side. Ask him where he wishes me to put them.

You have candles?

Yes, a dozen new boxes.

I know where they go. Show me where they are and I will unload them.

Miguel was perturbed that the boy in robes thought him so stupid. Had there really been candles, Miguel knew that the gaunt boy would have hidden some in the bushes to sell later. He would then have reported to the choirmaster that all were accounted for. For the work he did, the choirmaster would probably have rewarded him. As it was, there were no candles, and when the boy came out of the room and moved beyond Miguel’s pointing finger, Miguel stepped quickly through the opening and bolted the door behind him.

He was in a high-ceilinged antechamber. Across the room, a row of dim lights revealed a hallway leading to rooms where monks once lived and slept. Thick beams crisscrossed over Miguel’s head. There were no chairs, tables, or ornaments of any kind. Only the high, arched doorway and the imposing height of the room gave any indication that he was in a church.

Hey kid, what are you doing? Let me in!

Miguel ignored him. He heard the tinkling of single notes on a piano. The notes came from one of the rooms off the corridor.

I’m not supposed to wear my robes outside. Open before the Padre sees. Miguel listened as the boy began pounding on the door—softly and cautiously at first, then a bit louder. The door was thick and high, and the dull pounding echoed faintly in the empty room. The noise attracted a small boy of ten or so from one of the rooms near the tinkling piano. He, too, wore the deep blue robes of a choirboy.

What is Catalano doing outside? asked the boy.

I don’t know. Which is the choirmaster’s room?

There: the last one on the right.

He is alone?

Yes. Shall I let Catalano back in?

If you want.

He may give me a beating.

Don’t, then.

Miguel walked down the corridor. The choirmaster’s door was open and Miguel saw him sitting at a piano, writing musical symbols in a notebook. Also in the room were a desk and a chair. There were several religious pictures on the walls. The single stained-glass window depicted The Annunciation. The choirmaster was preoccupied and didn’t see Miguel at the door.

Excuse me, Señor, said Miguel. The choirmaster looked up over rounded spectacles. Yes?

My mother called earlier about my being in the choir.

Your name?

Calabrias.

You have just moved here from Mazatlán?

From Manzanillo.

Why do you want to sing in the choir?

I have always sung in a choir.

You sang in Manzanillo?

At the Church of the Divine Inspiration.

The choirmaster shifted his spectacles and reached over to his desk for a sheet of music. Let me hear you sing this scale, he said. He played a scale for Miguel and Miguel sang the notes. Now sing this. Very good. You have a pleasant tenor. In the boys’ choir there are fifteen others besides yourself. Their ages are from nine to sixteen. A few are here now; the rest go to schools in other districts and haven’t arrived yet. You will report here each day no later than 3:30. Do you wish to begin today?

If I may, Señor.

Very good. We have already begun to rehearse for the Celebration of Santa Teresa. Do you know anything about her?

Only a little.

She is the patron saint of Rinconada, and the savior of our city. You have heard of General Pepe Malavista?

Yes, Señor. He was a bandit. During the time of Santa Anna he looted many of our cities. He was killed here in Rinconada.

That’s right, smiled the choirmaster. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes slightly, then began speaking in a voice that was filled with both reverence and sadness.

The General was leading his men into the city when a young flower girl of sixteen stepped in front of his horse. Though the hot road burned her feet, she offered the General a carnation from her bouquet. Malavista must have thought she was pretty, because he dismounted and took the flower from her hand. She asked him to spare the city in the name of the beauty of that flower. He refused and threw the flower in the dust, for his men were impatient; their horses were hot and thirsty. The metal of their gun barrels burned their skin in the sun. ‘All my life,’ he said, ‘beauty has been kept from me.

"‘But why do you kill and rob?’ she asked. ‘I have always done so,’ he answered. She begged; she asked him to spare the city for her sake. She said she would be his servant, but although the General wavered, he refused again. His men were spitting in the dust. He told her that she would be his servant whether he looted the city or not. But the girl had a pistol in her bouquet of flowers. She pointed it at the general and tried to pull the trigger, but it was a large pistol and she was too weak. One of Malavista’s men shot her down with a single rifle bullet and she fell dead like a cloth doll.

"But the flower girl had stalled Malavista long enough. The townspeople had had time to assemble and surround Malavista’s small army, carrying rifles and pitchforks. As soon as Teresa fell, a hundred shots rang out from behind the bushes and from inside the houses. They say that if Malavista had rallied his men, he might have defeated the townspeople. Instead, when he saw the young girl fall with red blood on her white tunic, her flowers scattered in the dust, he just stood there and watched like a man gone numb. Some that were there said he looked tired and old, and when he was killed, the rest of his army scattered. That was over a hundred years ago.

Teresa was made a saint, and this church was built for her. Its bell was fashioned from the melted-down canons of Malavista’s army. The townspeople placed it high atop the church to be rung loudly in celebration of their freedom.

I have heard another story, Señor. They say that once every twenty years, for repentance, General Malavista returns and rings the bell of Santa Teresa de las Carnaciones.

It’s not just a story, Calabrias. The last time it rang, I was a choirboy like you. That was almost twenty years ago, during the feast of Santa Teresa. It was the loudest, yet the most melodious sound I have ever heard. Yet the top half of the bell tower was boarded up as it is today.

But if the tower is boarded up, how does the Padre call the townspeople to Mass?

We have a new bell, set lower in the bell tower. For over twenty years, except for that one time, it has been the only bell to ring.

Why is the old bell boarded up?

To prevent vandals from climbing the stairs and ringing the bell. It is too loud. It annoys the townspeople.

Do you think that it was the General who rang the bell twenty years ago?

Perhaps it was.

Do you think he will return again this year?

I don’t know. The Padre says not.

But it is tradition. It is in the heritage of this church and this city.

The choirmaster removed his spectacles and looked toward the ceiling. Finally he asked, Do you believe in Jesus and the Virgin?

Of course.

And is that not enough?

I don’t know what you mean, Señor Ramos.

Go out and meet the others. Tell them to stop that banging.

~ ~ ~

Come with me, said Catalano. I’ll introduce you to the Padre.

Miguel had been in the choir for two weeks and was well liked, even by Catalano. Rather than trying for revenge, the cadaverous monitor respected Miguel for the trick he had played on him, much like one thief admires a good heist pulled by another thief.

Miguel had seen the Padre only in brief glimpses. He was a small, red-faced man of about fifty or fifty-five who wore spectacles almost exactly like the choirmaster’s. He moved quickly around the church grounds as if he were on wheels, his cassock brushing the floor. He stood when Catalano and Miguel entered his study. His puffed cheeks made him look severe.

You are Calabrias, he said peremptorily. I took the liberty of asking the choirmaster your name when I saw you lock the dog in the vestry. I removed it before it could soil anything.

Padre, I . . .

I know that you’ve been mollycoddled into thinking that boys will be boys; that the pranks of the father may be passed on to the son. But here, Calabrias, you can forget these ideas. Here, there will be no more of these vandalistic goings on. You are here to sing in the choir, not to fool around.

Yes, Padre.

You must not play in the battlements or climb into the bell tower. When I say something to you, you must react instantly and obey unquestioningly.

Yes, Padre.

Have you understood what I’ve said?

I think so, Padre.

And you, Catalano?

Yes, Padre.

This is a house of God and must be treated as such. The Fiesta of Santa Teresa is a very important service, yet I have heard talk of bandits and murderers. The Fiesta must not be associated with hearsay and superstition.

But the General, Padre. It is said that he will come this year and ring the bell of Santa Teresa.

The General was an outlaw and a plunderer. The church abhors everything he did. These lies about the General will be stopped. The bell belongs to a bygone era and should be melted down.

But how can the stories about the General be lies, Padre? Many people say that they heard the bell twenty years ago. The older ones remember it even twenty years before that.

The soul of General Pepe Malavista is in Hell, said the Padre.

Then who rang the bell, Padre?

Vandals; perhaps boys like yourselves who like to play pranks. But this year it will not happen. I personally will guard the bell tower. There will be no more worshipping false gods.

~ ~ ~

Miguel and three others strolled in the shadow of the church. They sank down in the cool grass and rested their backs against the mimosa trees. Choir practice was over for the day and they were waiting for their mothers to pick them up. Miguel’s mother worked late in an office. The other three boys had difficulties at home and were often left at the church for days at a time. Because of this, one of the cloister rooms was often pressed into service as a dormitory. Sometimes Miguel, too, would stay there. Most of the boys had at one time or another spent a night in the cloisters.

Do you think the General will come? asked Felipe. He was the tousle-headed boy of ten who had shown Miguel the way to the choirmaster’s study on Miguel’s first day. Felipe’s mother liked to meet men and often left her son at the church while she went out looking. She made small but frequent contributions to the church for his care.

That’s only superstition, said Catalano.

You mustn’t say that, said the other boy, Rodriguez. It may bring bad luck.

Bah. The padre himself told us that there can be no ghosts that ring bells.

Miguel spoke to the two younger boys. It is true that the Padre thinks that the General is a bad spirit. He said that he will guard the tower on the feast day.

But he cannot guard against a ghost, said Rodriguez.

No, said Felipe. The General will come and ring the bell as he has always done.

The next day, Miguel took Catalano aside and told him, I don’t think the General will come.

Why are you telling me? asked Catalano. You know that I don’t believe in ghosts either.

"Because he must come. The town expects it. If not, kids like Felipe and Rodriguez will be disappointed. It is like fireworks to them and they don’t have much else to look forward to."

"I still don’t