The Voices in My Head

By Thom Whalen

This is a collection of fifty-two short stories. These stories were written to be read aloud in various writers’ groups. To serve that purpose, they were written as first person narrations with a minimal amount of direct dialog. The narrators speak with different voices – a homeless man, a defense lawyer, a high school student, an itinerant short-order cook, and many others. Most of these stories are light-hearted whimsy, but that doesn’t stop them from taking a darker turn when necessary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thom Whalen
• Release date: Jan 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463940020

Thom Whalen

Thom Whalen studied experimental psychology at UCSD (B.A.), UBC (M.A.) and Dalhousie University (Ph.D.). After working for the Government of Canada conducting research on the human factors of computer networks for thirty years, he retired to begin a new career writing fiction.If you wish to send him email, contact information is available at http://thomwhalen.com/ He eagerly awaits comment on his stories.

Book preview

So back about twenty years ago, I was hitching for a ride up in the bush country and I saw this bitty green frog sitting by the road.

It was a secondary highway, so there wasn’t much traffic and what traffic there was was in a rush to get where they was going, so I wasn’t getting any rides for a long time.

I had nothing better to do while I was sticking out my thumb than to watch this bitty green frog.

He was just sitting there, enjoying the day. It was a frog kind of day, cool and damp, like a swamp in the springtime. I think if it was a hot summer day, with the sun baking down, that little frog would of had to flop back to his pond or he would have been cooked there on the edge of the blacktop. Blacktop gets hot as an iron stove on a sunny day. But not on that cool, cloudy day. I was shivering a bit, but he was making out just fine.

With nothing better to do, I got to thinking on that frog. He had a fine life, I’m sure. Probably had a girlfriend back in the pond. Maybe a bunch of eggs hanging on a weed stem in the water, growing and soon to hatch into a bunch of wriggly little tadpoles.

But he didn’t have any care about that. Frogs is free. They don’t have to fret about whether their kids got food and clothes. They don’t have to wait on phone calls to find out if their kids is all right. There’s plenty of bugs in the swamp for the little tads to eat and a nice pond to keep them comfortable whether daddy is around or not.

So a daddy frog can just swim away, take his ease on the edge of the highway, and not spend a moment fussing about where his next feed is coming from or how he’s going to earn his next dollar. There’s always going to be a fly or two buzzing along his way and there’s always going to be a new pond to explore.

Ain’t no law looking for him to pay his alimony, calling him a deadbeat and a bum.

He don’t need to show no ID card to the sheriff or spend no nights in the tank for being vagrant. He can loiter all he wants and nobody gives him no mind. Nobody yells at him to get a job when they drive on by. His only job is just to live his life however he wants.

So I was sticking my thumb out and contemplating on this bitty green frog and how good life is and – glory be! – I get a ride. A big old Plymouth, black as midnight, pulls up alongside and the guy inside pops the door open and asks where I’m going, and I say west is all. Anywhere west. And he says that’s the way he’s going, so hop in and I do.

Lucky for me wasn’t lucky for that bitty frog. When that Plymouth pulled over, he squashed it under his big old whitewall. As I was getting in, I looked down and saw there wasn’t but one green leg sticking out from under his treads where that frog tried too late to leap.

So the frog’s life wasn’t without a sad end. Like all of us, I guess. But the thing of it is that that frog didn’t waste his time fretting about the hazards of the road, he just got on with his life for as best as he could and lived as happy as he could while he could.

And, too, when we drove off of him, that frog left behind a tasty morsel that’ll please the first crow that comes along.

There it is. We got a tasty morsel for a crow to carry off and a little tale left behind for me to tell for on twenty years. That little frog did some good after all, even if he never got a job and never did a lick of good for his little tads back in the pond.

Three in the Morning

Why should I care what my mother and father think about Sarah? I’m going to marry her whether they like her or not. Why am I awake at… What time is it? Three-eleven according to the clock. But the clock is wrong. It’s been six minutes fast for more than a month. I should set the time properly. But the last time that I tried to set the time, I got it wrong and I was late for work every morning for a week. It’s easier to remember that it’s six minutes fast than to try to figure out which buttons to press together and which buttons to hold down until the numbers blink. So the clock says that it’s three-eleven but it’s really five after three and that doesn’t matter at all because it’s still the middle of the night and I have to get up at seven because we have a meeting with the lawyer from Barton-Finchley at nine about whether we’re going to get sued for eight point six million over their contract but I’m more worried about Sarah meeting my parents on Sunday and I don’t know why. I’m going to marry her no matter what my parents say. Unless they are so awful to her that she runs out of the house in tears and never wants to see me again. Like that’s going to happen? They aren’t monsters, my parents. They’re nice people. Kind of. I mean, I moved out as soon as I could. Blew town when I turned eighteen. Moved to the other side of the country so that I didn’t have to spend all my Sundays at their house, eating Mom’s insipid, over-cooked Sunday dinners. But that wasn’t because they were so bad to me, that was… What? Why did I have to move so far away to go to university? I could have stayed in San Diego and gone to San Diego State. I didn’t have to move to Michigan. I could have stayed where it was warm all year around. Except that it wasn’t so warm in Mom and Dad’s house. It was cold. That’s the problem. Mom and Dad are cold. That’s why I moved away. Because Michigan winters are warmer than Mom and Dad’s dinner table. Are they going to freeze Sarah out? Are they going to be polite and distant and make vague statements about how inadequate she is? Or how inadequate I am? Wouldn’t that make us the perfect couple, if we’re both inadequate? If neither one of us can meet my parents’ lofty expectations. Sarah’s going to hate them. And she’ll see them in me. The more she gets to know them, the more she’s going to see that I have their mannerisms and attitudes and… Oh, God. She’s going to realize that she’s marrying a man who’s going to turn out to be just like his father. Especially if I blow the Barton-Finchley deal and get us sued for eight point six. I’ve got to be at my best tomorrow. I’ve got to get some sleep. And it’s already three-fifteen. No. The clock is fast. It’s only three-oh-nine. I can still get four hours if I can get to sleep right now. My eyes are aching, they’re so tired. They’re going to be red as the devil tomorrow. How am I going to convince the Barton-Finchley lawyers to approve the renegotiated contract if they look into my eyes and see the devil? How am I going to convince Sarah that I’m not like Dad if she looks at my eyes and sees red? Why are Dad’s eyes so red all the time? Is he awake at three in the morning, too? Does he spend half of every night worrying about stuff, too? Is he awake right now, worrying about if Sarah is going to like him? Maybe that’s not what he should worry about. Maybe I’m going to announce that I’ve been fired over Sunday dinner. That’s what he should worry about. That I’m going to get McRay Holdings sued for eight point six million and Peterson is going to chuck me out the door and I’ll be destitute and have to move back to San Diego and move in with Mom and Dad until I can find another job. God. I should have saved more money. I get a good salary. Why am I living from paycheck to paycheck? I should have savings. I should have saved enough to put a down payment on a house. Where are Sarah and I going to live after we get married? In this apartment? Maybe I shouldn’t marry her until I can afford to buy a house for us to live in. What happens if she gets pregnant? I can’t bring up a kid in a two-bedroom apartment. I’ve got to get my credit cards paid off and save money for a down payment on a house. A nice little bungalow in the suburbs. That’s where Sarah’s going to want to live. In the suburbs; not in in a high-rise in downtown Chicago. And for sure, not in my parents’ spare bedroom after I get fired for blowing the Barton-Finchley contract. Which isn’t my fault, anyway. I didn’t negotiate the original contract and agree to the ridiculous deadline for the deliverables. Hoyte who did that. Hoyte promised the moon then bailed as soon as Barton-Finchley signed the damned thing and left me holding the bag. I hope Hoyte gets fired from Keller, Young, and Turner. But that won’t do me any good if I can’t get their lawyers to agree to the new deadlines that I negotiated. Of course they’re going to agree. Underhill agreed in principle to every point. The lawyers are just approving the final wording. They won’t want to go back to their boss and tell him that he got suckered into a bad deal. That would make him look bad. Besides, it’s not a bad deal. Barton-Finchley are going to get exactly what they want, just a couple of weeks later than they thought they would. We’re going to have no problem delivering on the revised contract with the new deadlines. It’s all going to be fine. Sarah and Mom and Dad are going to get along fine, too. I’ll pick them up from the airport on Saturday and they’ll be happy to see me. And Sunday dinner will be good and everyone will get along. They all want to be friends because they know that I’m going to marry her, no matter what, so they’re going to have to get along for the rest of their lives. And the bonus that Irene promised to me for getting the Barton-Finchley renegotiation signed is going to be enough to pay off my credit cards. And I’m going to start saving for a house. Everything is going to be fine. If only I can get some sleep. It’s only three-twenty-one – three fifteen, actually; can’t forget that the clock is fast – so I can get almost four hours if I can get to sleep now. Four hours will be enough. I can get by on four hours. And everything is going to be fine. Life will be great. If only I can get some sleep.

Cupid’s Arrow

Cupid is real. He’s not some kind of metaphor or fable. He’s a real, living creature. A fat little fairy with wings and a bow and arrows. I know, because I saw the little bastard once.

I was in a bar back east, not New York but Newark. I had business in Manhattan, but who can afford to stay there? Hell, who can afford to drink there? Not an insurance agent from Grand Junction, Colorado, that’s for sure.

So, I was in this bar, knocking back a couple after spending a day meeting with corporate execs who were never going to sign with me when this fat little fairy comes flying in.

In all the paintings that I’ve seen, Cupid is this cute little baby. Don’t you believe it. He’s little and fat, like in the paintings, but that’s all. He’s no baby. He’s got a face like a nightmare grandfather, all wrinkled and liver spotted with three day’s growth of beard, gray and grizzled. That blonde hair ain’t. It’s a mop of dirty white, greasy curls that’s never seen shampoo.

The worst is his eyes. You’ve never seen such cynical eyes. They look right down into your heart to see all the evil secrets that you got hidden away. Those eyes see your darkest dreams and laugh at them.

So, we got this flabby old fairy flapping his stubby little wings– Did I mention that they’re like bat wings, but white and scaly? In those old paintings, the Cupids got feathers, but you’d have to be half blind to mistake those raggedy white scales for feathers.

Anyway, this ugly old-man Cupid is flapping in front of me, looking down and grinning like he’s got me dead to rights, and I knock back the rest of my shot and signal for the bartender to hit me again. I’m figuring that a third shot will clear my head and kill this bad dream.

The bartender is this young woman, must have been twenty-five or twenty-six, who’s as beautiful as Cupid is ugly. Way out of my league. This was back in the summer of ninety-seven and I was young, too – still in my twenties because my birthday is in November – but I was never much of a ladies’ man. That summer I was between girlfriends – long between – so I noticed the bartender, but didn’t pay her any mind because, like I said, she was way out of my league and I would have just been wasting my time.

She came over and poured me another shot – another single because I was never a big drinker – and gave me a sweet smile.

I didn’t give any credence to that, either, because that was just the tip-me-big smile that she was giving every guy at the bar. Let me give you a bit of advice, here. Don’t read too much into waitresses’ smiles. That smile is right there in their job description along with pushing drinks and not screwing up the orders too bad.

So, she gave me her sweetest smile and I paid for the drink and left a buck on the bar because the tip-me-big smile works.

Only this time, fat old Cupid is hanging up there in the air and he whips a gold arrow out of his quiver and draws a bead on her. That’s one thing that those old paintings got right. Cupid’s bow and arrows are solid gold.

When I see that he’d going to nail the bartender, I yell at her to watch out. She whips around to see what I’m yelling about, but all she sees is me shouting crazy.

I don’t know why she can’t see Cupid because he’s right there, plain as day and as real as a flying monkey. Which makes me wonder if that guy who wrote the Wizard of Oz maybe once saw Cupid, too, because he looks a little like those flying monkeys, except that he’s fatter and whiter and naked. Of course, they had to put clothes on the monkeys because that was a movie for kids and the Hollywood censors wouldn’t allow any nude monkeys in a kids’ movie. Maybe the monkeys were naked in the original script. I don’t know.

Anyway, back to my story. I yell at the bartender to watch out and she whips around and Cupid’s arrow nails her square in the middle of her chest. It sinks in deep, more than halfway up the shaft. It must have gone clean through her breast bone to her heart, no question.

She flinches and staggers a bit like anyone would if they took an arrow through the heart. Don’t kid yourself. Cupid’s arrows hurt like a bitch. I know because that little flying bastard, flapped around, whipped another arrow out of his quiver, and nailed me right in the chest, next.

It felt like my heart was on fire and I couldn’t draw a breath. I looked down and saw that golden shaft sticking out of my shirt just like that other arrow was sticking out of the bartender’s blouse. I knew for a fact that that both she and me were already good as dead and we were about to drop to the floor, a pair of stone-cold corpses, her lying on her side of the bar and me on mine, because no one can live with that much damage to his heart.

Cupid was still hanging up there, flapping away, laughing like a hyena. He figured that he’d just pulled the funniest prank ever.

And maybe he had, because we didn’t die. In fact, I didn’t see any blood on my shirt or on the waitress’s blouse like there should have been from someone heart shot.

She gasped and looked at me and asked me what I did to her, and I said that I didn’t do nothing, that Cupid just shot us both in the heart. And you know what she did? She laughed at me and said that she’d heard a lot of pickup lines, and that was the corniest of all.

Well, I told her that it wasn’t no pickup line. That there was an evil fairy right up there flying around and that he was trying to curse us by making us fall in love; and she said that love wasn’t a curse; and I said that shows how much you know about love.

While we were talking, our chests kept on puffing in and out with every breath, like is natural, and I could see that golden arrow working its way farther into her. The same was happening to me, and my heart was hurting more every minute. I don’t know how I carried on through the pain.

I won’t bore you with all the details of our conversation. We talked a bit about love and then she said that she had to go – other customers needed drinks – but that we should talk more about love, so for some reason that I never been able to explain, I asked if she wanted to go out to dinner and tell me why she thought that love wasn’t a curse, and she said that she’d love that.

By the time I left the bar, Cupid was gone off to find some other suckers. Last I saw of him, he was looking over his shoulder, still laughing like hell at me, as he flapped away. When I looked down, his golden arrow had worked itself all the way into my heart and I couldn’t see none of it sticking out any more. But it ached like hell in there. Still does, twenty years later on.

So, that’s how Linda and me were cursed by Cupid and she moved out to Colorado and, against all odds, we’re still together, today.

I don’t think that Linda should ever forgive that fat little flying bastard, for sticking her with me because she’s still way out of my league.

And me? Every day for twenty years, I been scared stiff that she’s going to pluck Cupid’s cursed arrow out of her heart and realize that she’s too good for me. I do try to keep her in the dark by being as good to her as I can, but this can’t last forever.

I’m pretty sure that when the day comes that she shucks that arrow and dumps me, Cupid will show up and be there watching and he’ll get his best laugh of all. That’s his nature.

The Gulf

I’ve got to get my dissertation finished. It’s due in a month because the committee has to have it for six weeks before my oral and then I’ve got to have at least two weeks for revisions before I go to Ohio. The revisions better be minor. Tenure-track jobs are as rare as diamonds. If I miss my deadline and can’t get to Ohio in time to prepare my classes for the fall semester, I’ll lose the position and I’ll never get another offer.

So what am I doing out here on a shrimp boat in the Gulf? I must be insane. I don’t have a weekend to spare to go fishing with Pop. I don’t get days off. I’ve got to work on my dissertation every day.

But he practically begged me to come. Said that he was desperate. He needed a hand with the nets and his best man was out with a broken wrist. Just this once, he promised. Just this one last time. The season is almost over. He needs one last haul to make enough to pay off the bank. He might not make the loan payment if he can’t get one last good catch.

He knows that he can do it. The shrimp are back. The oil from the last big spill is about gone and there’s plenty of shrimp in the gulf. He knows where he can find them. If only I can come down and give him a weekend of good work, he’ll be in the black for the year.

It’s all bullshit. I’ve been hearing the same story for as long as I can remember. He’s always on the edge of bankruptcy. Always needs to get a lucky break to survive. Always needs my help. And then he buys a new pickup with cash. He takes long vacations at the cottage during the off season. Puts a new kitchen in the house. He never lacks for money to spend. Until the next time he needs something from me, and then it’s the same old tragedy all over again. The banks are after him and he needs me desperately.

He never thinks that maybe I’m desperate, too. That I need to get my dissertation finished or my career will crash and burn before it even gets off the ground.

But how can I refuse? He paid for all my undergraduate education. I got a full ride from the scholarship of Pop. Not that I didn’t work for it. This isn’t the first time I’ve been out shrimping. Or the tenth. More likely the hundredth. But I still owe him. According to him.

The work is hard. We don’t talk much during the day. I’m too busy managing the winches and guiding the nets while he’s in the wheelhouse chasing the shrimp. He was right about one thing. He does know where the shrimp are. By the end of the day, we’ve taken a record