Rosalie & John

By Gene Clements

John was a regular customer at Rosalie’s Palm, and often stayed until closing time since he had no one to go home to. Rosie didn’t have anyone to go home to either and whenever John had a bit too much, Rosie worried about him driving home. She lived close by and had a soft sofa and a warm bed. And she knew he would be perfectly safe, and they would have lots of fun, if she took him home with her.

This story and 27 other short stories exposing the secret shady side of South Branch, Iowa can be found in the The Shady Side of South Branch by Gene Clements, available as an eBook or in paperback at the usual retailers.

Welcome to South Branch, a made-up town in Southeastern Iowa, which stands in here for many midwestern small towns: charming, friendly, proud, and with a comfortable aura of remembered history and a pleasant patina of deferred maintenance. The older men meet in the mornings at Pearl’s Downtown Diner to discuss the state of the world, the price of soybeans, the superiority of older cars they can fix themselves, the revisionist history of their romantic exploits from sixty years ago, and to complain about “kids today,” just like their fathers did sixty years ago. There’s a sense of community, a slow pace, and a thin veneer of prudence and prudery. People who live here, within the embrace of a horseshoe bend in the South Branch of Mosquito Creek (which the locals call “Skeeter Crick”), love the place, even though they agree it used to be better in nearly every way back when they were twenty.
Like any human settlement, South Branch has its share of secrets, desires, and incidents that most participants hope will not become common knowledge, and, like most secrets, these, or some incomplete, incorrect, minimized, or exaggerated version of them, quickly become part of the town’s breaking news. These secrets fade into vague memory fragments over time as fresh gossip becomes the entertainment of the day. In spite of the whispers and raised eyebrows, the hearers of these stories divide themselves, somewhat randomly, into those who are inwardly horrified by what they’ve heard, and those who are inwardly envious of the miscreants. Sometimes these responses do battle in the same person.
Even though the South Branch Sentinel comes out every week, the most interesting news in South Branch travels faster than the boys and girls on their bicycles who deliver the paper. If a young lady is smoking in the alley behind the hardware store, dad will know about it before she gets home, whereupon he’ll light up a cigarette and admonish her against the practice. Part of the attraction of these small towns is that everyone knows, or at least suspects, even the most discrete indiscretion on the part of their neighbors; that’s also what some people find repulsive about these places. Every nuance of scandal wafts over South Branch, enlivening the conversation at Pearl’s, the gossip at Claire’s Hair Affair, the tipsy talk at Rosalie’s Palm, and even, or especially, the whispered revelations at Reverend Goode’s “Salivation [sic] Station.”
What follows is a collection of short stories, completely made up, I hasten to say. Most of these stories center on particular people and places, along with a talented supporting cast. A word of caution for those who have read the earlier South Branch stories about Tilly and Elmer – you should know that Tilly and Elmer, fans of frisky fun as they are, find some of the shady characters and events in this book scandalous and shocking! Until they read this book, they had never thought of, much less engaged in, any of the more outrageous undertakings of their neighbors. Nevertheless, you can be sure everyone in these stories is enjoying him or herself, and no characters were harmed in the writing of these tales!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gene Clements
• Release date: Aug 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005982669

Gene Clements

Gene Clements is an artist, architect, and educator. He began the Tilly and Elmer series by writing a couple of paragraphs about a frisky older couple. His friends thought they were funny and wanted to find out what was going to happen if he finished the story. Now they know, for better or worse.Gene grew up in a small town in the Midwest although he now lives in California. He thinks he’s eighteen, but he’s really the same age as Tilly and Elmer. These stories aren’t necessarily autobiographical. Gene knows a lot of interesting people and has a prolific imagination; a dangerous combination.

Book preview

The Shady Side of South Branch #18

Rosalie & John

Gene Clements

Illustrations and Cover Design

Gene Clements

Pickleworks Press

The Shady Side of South Branch #18

Rosalie & John

Gene Clements

This is a work of fiction. Events, places, characters or names are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any references to historical events, places, or real people are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2020 Gene Clements

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

"This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Rosalie’s Palm

Rosalie’s husband, when he was alive, opened a bar in South Branch and jokingly named it the Rosie Palm as a tribute both to his wife Rosalie and the slang term for the lover of last resort of unattached men. After his unfortunate demise, Rosalie took over and made a small name change to make the place more acceptable in polite society.

Rosie has a sympathetic affection for a few of her customers, lonely, unattached men who she occasionally takes home with her after closing time and, momentarily at least cures both their loneliness and hers. Rosie, however, usually counts on Pete, who delivers her weekly supply of beer every Friday afternoon, to take care of her recurring need for affection. Meanwhile her weekend waitress, May, aspires in vain to learn the ways of the world from Pete’s sidekick, Lonnie.

The Shady Side of South Branch #18

Rosalie & John

John was at his usual post near the end of the bar, nursing the