Pineapple Grove and Other Short Stories

By Gary Alexander Azerier

Pineapple Grove & Other Short Stories is a book of ecclectic stories from the philosophical and nostalgic to the satiric and whimsical. For the science-fiction fan there are several of those included in this collection, as well as a take off or two on the pulp type horror talesof the fiftieswith some surprising twists. The collection of stories in Pineapple Grove contains short stories in boththe classical tradition of cozy yarn spinning and the kind of tales rarely stumbled on today. Reading this book is like sitting down with an old friend by the fire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 29, 2009
• ISBN: 9781438976389

Gary Alexander Azerier

Gary Alexander Azerier is a former broadcaster and journalist who also taught English and communications on the university level in Boston, Westchester County, and New York City. He served as radio correspondent for the Second Marine Division and lives with his wife, Rose Ann, in New York and Pennsylvania.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2009 Gary Alexander Azerier. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 4/23/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-7638-9 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-7637-2 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009903504

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Chapter 1

Pineapple Grove

Chapter 2

Early Days

Chapter 3

Yesterdays

Chapter 4

Friends

Chapter 5

Reflections

Chapter 6

Light Reflections

Chapter 7

Science Fiction Off the Wall

Chapter 8

Sweet Fantasy

About the Author

PINEAPPLE GROVE AND OTHER SHORT STORIES IS DEDICATED TO ROSE ANN…MY WIFE AND BEST BUDDY…WHO IS… ‘THE JOKES!’

Chapter 1

Pineapple Grove 

UPON THOSE SILENT WALLS WE LEFT THE SHADE

William Wordsworth – The Excursion

003_a_zzzz.jpg

Pineapple Grove

There is a place in Delray Beach, Florida, called Pineapple Grove. It is situated off Atlantic Avenue, the little city’s main drag, so to speak. Of course, there is nothing draggy about Atlantic Avenue. In fact, if anything can be construed as draggy, it would be Atlantic Avenue’s counterpart in Palm Beach, the posh, somewhat ostentatious Worth Avenue. Come to think of it, however, sterile might better describe Worth.

Before I go on to Pineapple Grove, I should like you to indulge me a few more observations about downtown Palm Beach and its rather antiseptic streets. On the days I recall strolling along the avenue, there were few others on the streets, little traffic, and most of the shops were, oddly, closed. My chief recollection is an overabundance of Rolls Royce and Bentley automobiles in a variety of colors, to the extent that they faded into the horizon and became, not only unnoticeable, but bordering on the vulgar. The ones I do remember were mocha, tan, deep chocolate, green, and convertible. The local police patrol cars were inordinate in number. Toward the bottom of the avenue, was the only shop I ever seemed compulsively to visit. It was a citrus shop specializing in lemons, oranges, and limes. Occasionally a shelf sported a red pepper jelly that was, instead of the promised hot, sickeningly sweet. South of all this on AIA was Atlantic. And you made a right.

The beautiful ride down on AIA was made interesting by the ocean on the left, the lovely, although well hidden, mansions and estates on both the left and the right, and scent of old money and history embracing all of it. There are Palm Beach postcards you can buy at flea markets, antique shops, and postcard shows that picture this community, its hotels, and tree-lined roads as it was back in the forties, thirties, twenties, and before. Much of it is still very recognizable. In a way, little has changed. One woman wrote on a Saturday morning in February 1914, We are surely having summer weather, although a little cool here. Trusting you are well. The card, signed N. W. D., is addressed to Mrs. R. Davis in what looks to be Assonet, Massachusetts.

Another, my favorite, read: My Dear Blanche, We are having a glorious time, but I wish I were back in Havana. It is so unique there. Do not sail til the 17th in N.Y. Love to you, Mabelle. It was sent to 1752 Beacon Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, February 14, 1920. The two cards show Lake Front Avenue, Palm Beach, Florida, and The Australian Walk, Palm Beach, Florida, respectively. The women pictured on one of the cards are wearing large floppy hats and ankle-length dresses. One of the women carries a parasol. The other woman wears a jacket. A man in the picture wears a suit and a derby. I wonder what became of N. W. D. and Mabelle and if she got to Havana.

So, today, as you drive slowly and carefully down AIA, you seem to sense the same trees in the deep green canopy, similar mild warmth, the possibility of the man in the derby, and a certain quiet that punctuated the simple conversation of the two strolling women on the Australian Walk. It is all very recognizable. And then there is Atlantic Avenue. At the corner, a noisy, Italian eatery, Boston’s overcrowded restaurant and bar, and a clothing store selling unlimited numbers of T-shirts, the last two or three years’ issue of current, oversized postcards and beach accessories.

Atlantic Avenue is divided into sections. It is quiet at the top, before the bridge and alongside the new, somewhat reserved Marriot. (It’s orange and looks like old Florida.) Also before the Intracoastal Waterway is an ice cream store where you can get a small cone of chocolate or peanut-butter vanilla for just a little over four dollars … not including what you put in the tip cup. If you have anything left, you can buy a seashell or a souvenir next door.

The Blue Anchor Pub rests on the corner, just over the bridge. It would be a welcoming establishment for the thirsty or the hungry but for the enigmatic fact that the chef, supposedly Irish or English, still insists on infusing his shepherd’s pie potatoes with garlic. In the evenings, an acid-rock band puts forth the loudest, most intolerable noise, making conversation, ordering, hearing, and swallowing daunting and near-impossible feats of will and effort.

What follows is another somewhat quiet stretch of street with a gallery here and a sidewalk café there, like a piedmont, stretching gradually before the vast range of mountain to come. It was livelier before development changes in the landscape, and activity seemed to gravitate farther west.

The old Colony Hotel pretty much marks the center of the avenue and sits, beige and off-red, in the center of the city’s history. The hotel recalls another day and boasts a porch, facing the avenue, furnished in Florida rattan and revelers who appear to be from somewhere else. Many grasp drinks and some sing.

Past the Colony, on either side of Atlantic, are sidewalk cafés. Nearly every one of the avenue’s many restaurants have placed tables and chairs on the sidewalks to accommodate diners who prefer dining with a close-up view of the street and its pedestrians, as their luncheon and dinner selections remain on display, longer than usual it seems, for the passersby to inspect with their casual, unobtrusive (and sometimes not so unobtrusive) glances.

And across the street, there are more galleries, gift shops, strange African and New World Order/Astrology shops and another ice cream/sweets shop with patrons lined up outside, waiting to pay prices similar to the four-dollar price farther east, closer to the beach.

Then, approaching the northeast corner, there is Louie Louie Two … or Too, depending how you read it. Around the corner from it is Pineapple Grove.

I live in a high-rise about a mile down on AIA. When I first moved into the building, I very nearly always bumped into a jolly fellow whenever, it appeared, I ventured into the elevator. His name was Scott, an Englishman of some means, very effusive, social, and good-natured. He seemed to be enjoying life, taking full advantage of the building, the area, the weather, the beach, and the pool. I, somewhat more modestly, was just enjoying the elevator ride up to the eighth floor, which I didn’t mind doing alone.

I grew up in an elevator building in Manhattan. The building had six floors. We lived on what I imagined to be a respectably high, fourth floor. On occasion, I rode to the fifth floor, which I understood was even higher and which seemed brighter, sunnier, and more airy, and even on rare days up to the sixth floor, which was considerably higher, in fact, an apex … the highest! It was on one afternoon, as a child, that I could have sworn I saw a red marking, through the see-through gate on the concrete wall before a designated floor, indicating a seventh floor. This took place when the building still used a manually run service elevator complete with gates, a governor, and heavy sliding doors operated by handles. For years, I secreted the thought that somewhere, beyond the zenith of the sixth floor, there was a seventh. I could still imagine seeing that red number 7 painted on the outside wall, but I never found the floor.

In the Florida place, there was a seventh floor beyond the sunny sixth … and I lived above that one … on the eighth. Strange how some of the really insignificant measures in life sometimes take on inordinate proportions. But I enjoyed living not on a lower floor, above my old fourth, beyond the sixth, and certainly beyond the seventh floor. And my jolly neighbor Scott seemed to enjoy the eighth floor as well (although I am sure, for different reasons). Certainly, he seemed to traverse the hallways enough. I got to enjoy meeting him pretty nearly each of my trips up or down.

On the first Christmas Eve my wife and I spent in the building, Scott must have sensed my wife’s feelings of misplacement. It just wasn’t a northeast Christmas. He rang our bell and invited us for Christmas dinner. We ate, we drank. The night was warm, happy, interesting, and Christmassy!

A short time later, four of us ate at Louie, Louie Two … or Too (depending on how you take it!). It was before the city started building Pineapple Grove, and we didn’t even walk in that direction but we passed it. We ambled west of Louie and where the Grove would later be, but there was less development in that direction (than there would later come to be). Somehow, the evening fizzled, and we wound up browsing in a drugstore before the night was over. Scott said he hadn’t been feeling well. He was quiet.

Scott died shortly thereafter. I hadn’t known him for that long a time but felt I had lost an old, old friend. The elevator trips were hardly the same. I actually found myself waiting for him to show up and had a shade of surprise when his shout to Hold it didn’t obtrusively