The Charmurz

By Barry F. Schnell

BOOK SUMMARY


Before there was man, before there was woman there was bowling. Against

a backdrop of urban upheaval and familial tumult, Rich Roeb and Barbara Stewart-Ridge

used their fingers as an impetus to roll their souls into a long-term, lip locked, perfect

game.

Against great odds, and despite often being on the gutter side of Karma, their

love would not be denied. They were meant to be, and bowl, as one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477114926

Barry F. Schnell

In his first posthumous work, Barry F. Schnell explores the depths of the feline psyche as it has never been extrapolated before. Barry F. Schnells final weeks along the beaches of Pitcairn Island were described by locals as being filled with arguments with palm trees, air quotes, and gluttonous excess. After cramming his manuscript into an emptied, dominated Jeroboam of pink champagne, Schnell grasped a wooden fork and walked into the ocean descending on a school of pufferfish never to be seen erect again.

Book preview

THE CHARMURZ

117002-SCHN-layout-low.pdf

BARRY F. SCHNELL

Copyright © 2012 by Barry F. Schnell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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117002

Contents

DEDICATION

BALLING

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

HAWKING WARES

LEAGUE FLOTSAM

A COUPLE, ON PAPER

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16

RELATIVE SPLENDOR

ADRIFT BETWEEN FRAMES

WELCOME TO BLISSVILLE

A PEG FOR EVERY HOLE

SATURDAY, MARCH 15

THE STUFF OF LEGENDS

EROSION DIVERSITY STYLE

COPING ALONG

JUERGEN’S THUNDER

ROOTS DU JOUR

DEDICATION

For the fascinating, bountiful bouquet of wonderful souls, those relatives and friends, which have permitted me to clutch them to my bosom through the decades.

If I couldn’t bowl, I probably wouldn’t want to be.

—Socrates, 1936

BALLING

What’s that noise? Barb asked. Not one to passenger about in motorcars very often, the low, incessant grinding made her a little nervous. It sounded too reminiscent of a rodent rummaging through her shoe closet. She still accounts that day as the worst of her life.

Oh, that’s just one of the features they engineer into the Studebaker experience. It’s like in Germany. If you’re not part of the road, you’re missing out on the entire feeling altogether.

Rich responded while dabbing a glob of sweat from the base of his crudely coiffed sideburn with his monogrammed handkerchief. He actually knew less about cars than a woman’s body, and he’d never been underneath either. He rammed his left hand into his sport coat pocket in search of his stainless steel monogrammed cigarette lighter procured somewhere while on a tour of duty in the south Pacific after betting an inferior rank he couldn’t smoke a whole Kent without exhaling once. To this day, it’s still his only trick. Many would argue also his only skill. He may throw it down on Barb, and soon, should he sense a lull in the conversation on this fanciful date set up by his barber and the church organist.

Yeah, so, I got a great deal on this baby. It was only seven hundred smackers. I really talked the guy down. He was eating chicken gravy out of my hand. Rich punctuated the sentence with a powerful crank of his chin to the left and popped a Kent between his lips. He’d gotten very good at steering a car with his knees while using both hands to light up his smoke. Hopefully Barb would just take him at his word on the car sales negotiation. Rich really paid sixteen hundred dollars—a third of a year’s salary—on the gray, ’52 coupe with a deep scratch from one side of the roof to the other. Barb wouldn’t press the issue. She could care less about cars. Her parents raised her to be a horse girl. But there were no horses in the country’s second largest city in 1968, not enough to get around reliably from one end of town to the other, anyway. She was curious as to why the monogrammed initials on all of Rich’s personal belongings, "D.H.," didn’t match with his name—Rich Roeb. She would save the interrogation until maybe the third date. By God, she wanted to get to a third date with someone this time. Coming off like a district attorney, her standard fallback personality for chitchat, is never well received.

Rich dangled his Kent a few degrees too far from the corner of his bottom right lip and it fell, flame end down, into his baby blue trouser pleat. Barb pretended not to notice. When Rich shrieked out then plowed the front of the Studebaker into a mailbox post prior to locking up the brakes trying to retrieve the Kent with both hands, Barb was thrown forward into the battleship gray, cracked dashboard with enough force to elicit some type of innate reaction she just wasn’t accustomed to speaking out loud.

Oh, mercy me!

Rich closed his eyes and took a deep drag off the Kent. He then looked over at Barb who was situating herself upright on the passenger side of the bench seat.

Sorry about that. Rich said somewhat apologetically. Sometimes she’s got a mind of her own.

Is that a fact? Barb replied.

Her front teeth felt loose. Again, poise won out. Rich raised his chin and took a token look towards the point of impact on the front of the Studebaker.

No damage done as far as I can tell. Shall we carry on? If we don’t get there by seven-thirty, we probably won’t get a lane at Calsag. We’ll have to drive back across town to Gately Lanes, and I don’t like the cigarette machine there. One time I put in three dollars and it never gave me my cigarettes. I told the manager to go to hell, and I’d like to stand by that.

Barb nodded. Having never been inside a bowling alley, she wasn’t partial to either venue. Mother told her to just shut her banana hole, smile, and do as the gentleman escort says. Those are the ingredients of a happy courtship, mother said. After the marital oath is taken is when Barb would be clear to tear down and rebuild Rich in her desired image. Still, she was a little nervous about some of the stories she heard regarding the characters that frequented bowling alleys. They used vulgarity in place of verbs and rarely, if ever, washed their fingers. Rich didn’t fit that precise mold as far as she could tell. It was still early, though. And he did just say, hell. While she’d known of Rich, as they attended services together at the same church since childhood, she really didn’t know him.

Rich fumbled for, and then successfully lit, another Kent. He smiled when the Studebaker responded as intended when he guided her towards the right side of the boulevard northbound towards Calsag. He was happy Barb decided to go with him as he’d been after her since tasting her ambrosia recipe at the church picnic several months before. Truth be known, it was Barb’s mother’s ambrosia recipe, but Barb felt no shame in passing it off as her own. She’d watch Verdel Stewart Ridge (mother always announced her name that way when somebody would ask to make her existence sound more regal than it actually was) make the coconut/mandarin orange/marshmallow concoction several times per year on special occasions for going on thirty-four years now. That, Barb felt, also gave her ownership of the recipe. She never asked questions while Verdel churned it all together with a wooden spoon and her bare hands. And the utter thought of coconut in the house made Barb queasy. Barb had no recipes of her own. She needed to have at least this one—the one Rich enjoyed so well—attributed to her if there was to be a future between the two of them.

Rich enjoyed his bowling, his Kents, and his ambrosia. If he landed a steady girl in Barb, it would be a plump cherry on top of all of the other stuff. Barb had a good reputation around town and only one long-term relationship just after high school with Kenny Koenig. Kenny went off to the Navy, met a girl in Guam who liked to walk around the beach with no top on, and he was gone to Barb forever. A few times he would send photos of himself with the Guam bombshell along with a note stringing Barb along utilizing such phrases as  . . . wish this was you! or  . . . the Navy is the best thing that ever happened to me! See you after another hitch. Eventually Barb surmised Kenny had lost interest when the notes and photos stopped coming. She was a little sad with Kenny being her first really serious boyfriend and all. Verdel assured her that the world was full of seamen, and Barb would get her fill in the end.

Rich motored the sputtering Studebaker into one of the last available diagonal-striped spaces in the Calsag parking lot. Calsag was the preferred choice for serious, disease-free bowling in town. It was built just after the Great Neighborhood Fire consumed every square inch of Roselessland—which was renamed after the fire and had been Rosefilledland before it was reduced to poor, immigrant ashes early on in the century. All of the equipment was vintage original and they still used spry, pubescent lads as the pin boys. There were six youths to tend to all twenty-four lanes. That was four lanes apiece to look after. The more affluent pin boys made eleven dollars per night after a six-hour shift from 6:00 PM to midnight. A mop bucket was supplied should they need to pass water—or worse. Calsag still had a distinct, smoldering corpse odor as the planks for the lanes were thrown down right on top of the Great Neighborhood Fire ash in a haste to get the bowling alley up and running to breathe life back into the incinerated locality. Bowling would make the singed survivors forget their troubles; it was the best elixir for a bad day, the thinking was. Rich felt more at home at Calsag than he did at his actual home—an efficiency studio flat a few miles away. When he took off to the navy for a two-year hitch of his own, he wrote to Baldwin Wurst, the bowling alley manager, more than he wrote to his mother. There was very little bowling to be had on a submarine, and every day without rolling a line was absolute hell for Rich. If he didn’t have his Kents, five thousand feet below sea level, he would have launched himself from one of the torpedo tubes. He kept a bunk-side calendar that was given to him by the local Studebaker dealer. Every day he would mark off another day away from Calsag by scribbling a bowling pin with a smiley face across the day that just painfully expired. Rich was a woeful artist. All of the other sailors thought he was drawing happy-go-lucky phalluses.

Barb waited inside the car for Rich to come around and open her door. She waited a little longer then decided to glance over her shoulder just in time to see Rich entering the Calsag side door without her. He could still be a little shaken up from the mini car accident, she thought. Maybe he had a concussion. Barb knew her head was pounding. She tilted the rear view mirror towards her to see if her face was still okay. Maybe a little more blush on the right cheek would help. In the mirror, she saw Rich walking back towards the car and smiled. He was a gentleman. Surely the head wound is what made him forget her. Barb tightened her grip on the orange and black shawl Verdel crocheted for her as a graduation gift several years ago in preparation for her grand escort from the Studebaker. She felt the car jolt and looked again in the rear view mirror to see Rich quickly remove his bowling bag from the trunk. He slammed the trunk lid shut. The left side of the front bumper popped away from the car. It was now a dangling, jagged chrome weapon to street-side pedestrians. Rich didn’t notice the bumper unhinge and walked briskly back towards the Calsag side door entrance. He dropped the bag on his foot trying to open the door and light up a fresh Kent at the same time, and then limped on in kicking the bowling bag in front of him. Barb sighed. She exited the Studebaker under her own power and entered the bowling alley. She couldn’t see Rich right off the bat. She slowly took a few more steps inside. Already she could hear anonymous shouts of Dammit! and Crap! coming from some of the lanes. She clenched her shawl to her bosom in trepidation. The odor inside the building caused her eyes to water. She’d never smelled anything like it. It was a combination of soot, skunk, and blue-collar feet. She covered her nose and mouth with a corner of her shawl. Finally she spotted Rich over by the cigarette machine pumping coins into it from his trouser pocket. She walked over to him when he started pounding on the front of the machine.

I found my way in, Barb said.

Verdel trained her in the artistry of subtle martyrdom well.

"I suppose I had to."

What did I tell you? Did I tell you? Three bucks into the machine already, and no cigarettes! Rich glared angrily towards Baldwin who stood behind the front counter slurping sardines with a toothpick.

I thought you said that happened at Gately Lanes? Barb said confused.

Rich stopped pounding on the machine. He’d already forgotten that it was at Gately Lanes where he was wronged in this manner. He was embarrassed, but only for a second as he spotted his buddies, teammates actually, rolling the night away over on lane fourteen. Hey, let’s go introduce you to my friends.

Barb already knew Rich’s friends. They all went to the same church. Two of them she’d also known since childhood, the Rathskeller twins, Moose and Deuce. Zed Esel, Rich’s closest friend, liked bowling in his bare feet for the same reason Rich liked becoming one with the road for driving a Studebaker. League rules insisted shoes be worn, and Zed was never happy about it. Despite the mandate, Zed was usually gregarious. But what he didn’t know, or wouldn’t admit, was that his personable nature was borne from disease—alcoholism. Every smile he threw, every compliment he paid, every hearty laugh he contributed, they were all derived from a common goal: to get somebody else, whether he knew him or not, to buy him a drink. The disease was the cause of his lifelong financial plight, and therefore served as the impetus for his life glutted with familiar faces and acquaintances—but few true friends.

Moose and Deuce didn’t talk much.

Hey guys! Rich said while dragging Barb toward them by the arm. I’m on a date. This is Barb. Stewart-Ridge is her last name.

Yeah. Moose said.

We know. Deuce added.

What are you guys drinking? Zed asked. He reached into his knowingly empty pockets pretending to feel around for beer shekels.

Whiskey sour! Rich yelled as if saying it louder would make it come faster. He looked at Barb, who didn’t drink, then back at Zed and yelled again. Make that two!

I don’t… I don’t really drink. Barb said then cleared her throat.

Aw, that’s silly. C’mon. If you don’t finish it, I will.

Zed didn’t think they’d take him up on his offer. He knew Barb didn’t drink, and he thought Rich would just want to bowl and smoke for a while before purchasing his own whiskey sour. Zed nodded and walked away. It was time to scheme.

You ain’t bowling here, is you? Moose asked. He hated to have his game interrupted, and they were already on the fourth frame of game two.

No, no. Rich searched his pockets for a stray Kent. No luck. It’s our first date. We’re going to roll a quick line or two then grab a chopped steak special down in the diner. Rich gestured toward the Calsag’s combination pro shop and eatery named Fingertipz. One could have his new ball fitted and drilled while he waited for his chopped steak in a booth made from old bowling bags stuffed with retired pin sawdust.

Moose didn’t wait to hear the entire reply. It was his turn, and he was already up on the lane wiggling his sliced and mangled fingers over the air blower. Moose was a tradesman, and he came out bowling so he could try and forget that. He was never any good at hammering or sawing as his phalanges proved. Plus, he was a little miffed that Rich asked Barb out on a date. Moose had his eye on her for some time—fourteen years—but he wanted her to ask him out so he wouldn’t be rejected. He was a lover, but more sensitive than his brother.

Frig it! Moose screamed when his Black Beauty hit the head pin square on the front and left him with a seven-ten split. This whole Rich and Barb date had shaken him. Barb was not happy with the outburst… or the language.

We’ll see you guys at church, Rich said.

He entwined arms with Barb and went up to the front counter to get a lane. Barb thought Rich was being quite forward with this maneuver, but again, didn’t want to sour the future by withdrawing her arm from his. His bowling arm, the right, was sinewy and rigid. To Barb it felt like she was clinging to a sturdy handrail support inside the trolley car. Rich’s left arm was typically taxed after it had to hoist his cigarette lighter up to his lips.

Evening, folks. What’s it going to be? Baldwin asked while wiping away some sardine skin from the corner of his mouth with a Calsag Lanes bowling towel.

We’re just going to roll a quick line and then get a chopped steak. Rich looked around the alley. There weren’t many to choose from. How about seventeen?

It’s down right now. Eighteen, too. The colored kid didn’t show up, so I’ve only got five boys tonight. Four lanes I’ve got to keep dark or they won’t be able to keep up. Is seven okay?

Rich shook his head. He hated lane seven. The ashtray was wobbly.

Nine? Baldwin countered.

Rich paused. The ashtray was good. Though he always rolled ten pins under average on lanes nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. As the crow flies, they were all furthest from the cigarette machine. The hike took its toll and was reflected in Rich’s lower scores, he surmised.

Lane twenty-four was the last available option. Rich hated bowling so close to the sidewall. He ultimately decided that, since it wasn’t a league night, he could put up with the sidewall distraction. Rich’s nickname for lane twenty-four during league play was Craproll Valley. Baldwin lifted up his can of sardines from the pile of score sheets and handed one to Rich along with a viciously chewed on scoring pencil. Fish oil drippings dotted the landscape of the score sheet.

I’ll need some shoes for the lady.

Size? Baldwin asked Barb.

Barb had no idea if bowling shoe sizes ran the same as flat sizes, slipper sizes, or sandal sizes. She asked to try on a seven, seven-and-a-half, an eight, and a nine. Baldwin dropped a pair of each requested size in front of her. Barb was aghast at the condition of the footwear they were expecting her to put on her pristine and washed feet. Two of the pairs had holes near the big toe. The seven-and-a-half’s lacked any structural integrity near both heels. All of them were filthy. The sardines even had an edge in the odor department. She settled on the size nines primarily because they were too big and would have the least amount of contact with her skin.

Have you seen Zed? Rich asked Baldwin. He said he was going to get us some whiskey sours.

Nope. But I’ll send him down your way if he happens by.

They had no way of knowing that Zed was out in the parking lot trying to sell his personal bowling shoes in order to amass the necessary funds required to purchase the whiskey sours. He knew he would never be able to unload his shoes on a regular. But some random date night stiff would be along sooner or later. Zed felt confident he would make the sale within the hour and have both drinks delivered before Rich and Barb sat down at Fingertipz. He had no emotional attachment to his bowling shoes but always had them in his bowling bag for just such an instance. His bare feet had carried him to a 148 average for seven seasons. Zed felt he was the last purist left when it came to bowling. Special shoes just to bowl? It was akin to wearing a concrete bathing cap into the swimming pool.

Oh, Rich tried to pretend he wasn’t highly agitated. I lost three dollars in the cigarette machine. I’d hate Calsag to get the same reputation out there as Gately Lanes, you know?

Baldwin bit the head off of a sardine and chewed it once before swallowing. He appreciated all the money Rich spent at the alley, but hated complainers in general. Baldwin opened the cash register and refunded Rich the money in the form of three singles.

Thanks. But can I get it in coins? I want to try and buy some more Kents.

Baldwin sighed. He exchanged the singles for quarters, dimes, and nickels. Rich slid them off of the counter and put them into his pants pocket already crowded with his lighter, handkerchief, and spare handkerchief.

Wait till I look at the machine before you try and buy anymore cigarettes.

The logic confused Rich, but he agreed. He picked up his ball and strode towards lane twenty-four. Barb clumsily wobbled several paces behind him trying to minimize the skin-to-shoe contact with her size nines. The thunderous crack of a sixteen-pound Black Beauty perfectly assaulting the pocket on alley number nineteen caused Rich to stop in his tracks and look over. He knew who it was even before fixing his eyes in that direction. Sure enough, there sauntering casually back into his seat after tossing the pulverizing strike ball was Rich’s league nemesis and karmic bane, Chester Arquette. At the last second, Chester saw Rich observing him but chose not to acknowledge it. He knew the booming rumble still echoing around the alley would gnaw at Rich’s psyche for days. Chester had Rich’s number, that was for sure. But neither was sure why. By day, Chester was the wristwatch repairman at Der Hausgeshaft, the only department store in Roselessland where everyone could buy clean underpants, a bag of fudge, and have his timepiece repaired all under one roof. During every other waking hour, he sold real estate on the side. Chester was the best at his craft for miles around. Standing six-foot-two with an absolute luxurious mane of silver hair that he wore just past the collar and a jaw that jutted out like the horizontal base of a capital L on the HOLLYWOOD sign, women all over town would bring their timepieces in for servicing that had been accidentally dropped in egg beaters or tossed in the wash machine during a cycle of whites.

Barb stopped behind Rich. She, of course, knew Chester. All of the over-forty girls had him in their sights and made no secret of it during hen sessions after church. Barb wouldn’t deny he was nice to look at. She just didn’t go in for that type of look, generally speaking. A handsome man would only lead to heartache, Verdel assured her. Invest in the souls of the damned, not the facades of the fruitful, Verdel repeated to her time and again since Barb was old enough to listen.

Rich tried to peer down toward the scoring table to see exactly what type of game Chester was throwing. As the overheard illumination lamp that would project the game on the ceiling above, typically reserved for league play, was turned off, he couldn’t say for sure. Chester was a two hundred average. He made bowling look as easy as putting on pants. He threw one of those big hooks from the right side that Rich just flat out could never master. As such, Rich felt the big hook balls, like Chester, were all for show. Rich threw a six to ten-board baby hook ball and had for over a decade. If he missed his mark, it was on him. Gorilla hook ballers like Chester, though, always blamed the lane, or the oil, or the lights, if their throws missed the pocket. Rich couldn’t think of any person he detested more than a big hook-baller who banked on style over substance to get the job done. Rich couldn’t see but the last two frames on Chester’s score sheet, both X’s, as he had the left side obscured beneath his left arm. Chester quickly looked up and busted Rich trying to peek his score sheet. For Rich’s benefit, Chester moved his left arm to reveal three X’s on the frames prior. He’d be on track for a perfect game except for a nine plus spare he opened the game with. Rich looked away in the direction of his destination, lane twenty-four. Chester then caught eyes with Barb and he managed an understated, but oh-so-effective, smile. He wouldn’t wink. That was for amateurs.

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

Reverend Lutz looked down from the third story window from his office tucked into the spire of the Knochwurst Park Congregational Church (also referred to as Knochwurst Park Community Church by those who had trouble getting out the word congregational). A heavy sigh erupted with enough oomph to part his lips. The changing neighborhood was not a