Sweet, Sour and Sad

By Norman Keifetz

Norman Keifetz, who has published three novels, had plays performed, entertained readers with many short stories, is a surprising writer. A treat for readers who know his work and for those who come upon his writing for the first time. Hes not a household name and it is puzzling why he doesnt have that kind of celebrity. If a good book is a cure for insomnia, he will keep you awake and thinking and wanting more. Mr. Keifetz has lectured on writing and the creative spirit over the years at book festivals and seminars around the country -- in little cities and big -- Glens Falls, NY, Las Cruces, NM, Cincinnati, OH,
Chicago, IL --to name a few. Hes published literary criticism, poetry, and has had plays produced.
Sweet, Sour, and Sad is his first collection of unpublished works. His new bi-lingual novella, The Smoking Contest (in English and French), is on press. Mr. Keifetz was married to the late Joyce Engelson, a legendary editor in book publishing.And their daughter, Mandy Keifetz, was the fiction winner of the 2010 AWP Award Series with her novel, Flea Circus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479725915

Norman Keifetz

Norman Keifetz has published nine earlier novels, had plays produced, entertained readers of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines as well as literary quarterlies. He is a surprising writer, a treat for readers who know his work and for those who come upon his writing for the first time. His work has been honored at book festivals in London, New York, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. The author is married to the award winning Mexican poet, Issamary Simmons Benavides. They live in New York and San Miguel Allende, Mexico.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Norman Keifetz.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012918274

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-2590-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-2589-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-2591-5

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.

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Contents

STORIES

Coca Cola Tables

Egg MacGuffin

Lying in Wait

Purloined Violins

Crime Scene

PLAYS

What We Dropped

Oven Men

I much prefer a compliment, insincere or not, to sincere criticism.

—Plautus, Mostellaria

Praise For Earlier Writing

"A witty and nimble tour de force’’

—The New York Times

Writes with understanding and a feel for the human condition.

—New York Newsday

Lively, full of the unexpected.

—Heywood Broun

Skill as a writer and weaver of intrigue.

—The Denver Post

"Fascinating and full of surprises . . . turns unforeseen corners."

—The Library Journal

What Keifetz does well is portray the torment that rages in his flawed hero.

—Metro DC Area

Suspense, originality and, not least, compassion.

—The Sunday Oregonian

His writing is breezy, insightful and always captivating.

—Buffalo Evening News

A knack for creating bizarre characters and making them totally believable.

—Robert Creamer,-Sports Illustrated

STORIES

Coca Cola Tables

Matt had been the current custodian of his cousin Rey’s Coca Cola tables when a handsome young American woman arrived in the market in Juarez. Somehow, he’d seen a flash of her blond hair out of the corner of his eye. She had parked no more than 50 feet from where he was resting atop three of the tables, a makeshift bed. She tipped the uniformed custodian of the parking meters, and headed to the entrance. And there, just inside were the tables. She stopped, cast her eye upon them. Matt saw that she counted the 25 each with its set of four chairs using a bouncing index finger. She moved in and out among them to study them more closely. The tables and chairs were special. Well crafted, they were made in the early 1940s. Baked red and white enamel featured the distinctive Coca Cola logo. She could not know that they belonged to Rey Pascua, his cousin, well, his aunt’s cousin. Neither could she know that the man sleeping atop three of the tables at the far end was Matt himself, their sometime custodian. Maybe she thought he was one of the Mexican homeless, or a worker from the market on siesta. That was not her concern. It was her business to know the tables were marketable. She saw they were semi-antique at best, but campy, their value nostalgic and, in that sense, desirable.

When she entered the market, she tried to find an owner, or the person who saw to the tables or maintained them. She interrupted the reverie of a stall-owner to ask. The man had trouble understanding her broken Spanish and he sent her to another stall in the market to find the owner of the Coca Cola tables. The people in the other stall spoke some English and told her they thought they’d seen the man she sought in blankets, but the woman selling blankets and clothing said he was upstairs in troche-moche, which turned out to mean ticky-tacky, stalls selling plaster images, trinkets and toys, stuffed varnished bull frogs playing base fiddles, and cow heads, tin chimes, cheap mirrors and papier maché figures looming from the ceiling like specters of whimsy. In troche-moche they told her they’d seen him at the corner barbershop. At the barber shop they said he was back at the market, at the Coca Cola tables.

Irritated, she walked back to the tables, frustrated by the wild goose chase. She saw the sleeping Matt again.

The tables are his, right? She asked a man who was just entering the market, wanting to be sure.

Rather, Señora, his to watch. They belong to his cousin, Rey.

Well, that’s the same, isn’t it? she asked.

The man shrugged. After a moment he asked, Do you own what is your cousin’s?

Ugh, she must have thought to herself. Her frustration could not have left her very much patience for these fine Mexican distinctions. She began to pace, weaving in and out among the Coca Cola tables, bending to look at legs, examining for rust spots, running her hand across the tabletops. She couldn’t help seeing that they had held up remarkably well for what… perhaps fifty years?

She pulled a chair out to study it more closely; it made a grating noise against the floor tiles of the market. She stopped, instinctively, so as not to wake the sleeping man, but then dragged the chair along the ground again, now hoping to wake him. But Matt pretended to sleep on. She checked her wristwatch, walked up to the sleeper, and loudly cleared her throat. He didn’t budge. He knew his body appeared completely relaxed on the tables. Growing bolder, she gently shook his leg.

Excuse me.

Matt made no response.

She moved away, knocking loudly on table tops, scraping chair legs noisily. Unaware that Matt was already awake, she turned to find that the noise had accomplished its purpose; the man was up now, in fact, standing on a table. Matt moved gracefully from tabletop to tabletop, stopping at a table closer to her. My cousin who owns them always said a devil with a thousand eyes roams these tables… one has to stay alert, be on top of it, yes?

She turned to see him steadying himself atop the table. She was amused.

A devil? A pause. Silly, she added, though he knew she meant unrealistic, impractical.

Well, you see, he signed a contract with the Coca Cola company not to sell them and, to him, it became ironclad, a contract one couldn’t break.

She found his voice cultivated, carrying a slight intonation, a Mexican edge that lent it a soft charm.

In fact, Matt had added the Mexican lilt to his voice. He often did that when he met a new gringa in Juarez because he believed the Americans expected it of him.

Unbreakable? My lawyers tell me there isn’t a contract made than cannot be broken.

"You’re a business woman, Señora?" Matt hopped down from the table top. She must have seen that his hairline had begun creeping up a little at the sides; otherwise, it was dark and wavy. He caught her looking at the scar the divided his eyebrow.

Matt saw that she took care to study his eyes. She extended her hand.

I run an antiques shop in a department store in Dallas. My name is Juno Holiday. And you are Mr. Pascua, right?

He took her hand, ignored the question, addressing himself to her earlier point. "Ahh, the contract. My cousin could not afford lawyers, Señora Holiday. And he believed he would never have the money to fight Coca Cola if he did not keep the agreement. There was a $500 fine for violation of the contract. And so the agreement went beyond being sacred. It became something like a pact with the devil." Matt was aware that he had begun to act, playing the poor Mexican one minute, the sophisticate the next. She was a woman he wished to play with.

Juno got up, freed her hand from his grip, began studying the tables again, walking among them.

After all these years the tables have held up very nicely. Just enough nicks and wear-spots to make them charming. I could see why your cousin would cling to them.

Cling. Yes. My cousin Rey Pascua held on for dear life. He was always worried the American shoppers would finally seduce him. He smiled.

Matt had a debonair quality, something she did not expect, she would tell him later, from someone short and ebullient. At that time she was not aware she was with a man who enjoyed being with women and, because he did, had learned to understand them, at least as much as a man could. She would one day confess that she loved his smile almost immediately, his eyes too, with lashes that were very long and very straight. The scar fascinated her.

What about the Mexicans around here? No interest in the tables—?

Inside, he winced a little at the Mexicans around here… There was always that attitudinal thing about gringas, he realized, that made him want to appear as Mexican Mexican as he could. When he was with his own family or with Latinos he felt free to blend in. But Matt had always believed he had a neuron here and a ganglion there attached to a woman’s sensibilities, and that he could present himself, in whatever guise, as the kind of person a woman wanted to know everything about.

No. No interest. The locals aren’t engaged in the same yearning for some reason… He gestured at the tables. Maybe because the tables were always here to see and use, already a part of their lives at the market.

Years later she told him that he reminded her of a particular Italian actor, a handsome guy, or was he French? She never did recall the actor’s name, though she remembered Matt had the same slightly wavy dark hair and white skin.

So only the Americans want them—

"Yes. For the most part, Señora Holiday. But, of late, the Japanese have come to Juarez, and the Canadians. They seem to have some longing, or at least many inquiries about them."

I’m surprised your cousin didn’t sell a few sets. If he sold just a few, he’d have more money than the possible fine imposed by the contract with Coca Cola.

Ahh, business, yes? He shrugged. Maybe he was not good at business.

I’m surprised there’ve been no thefts. They just sit out here exposed to any common thief.

He smiled at that. "Rey always said the Americans are afraid of our jails. And the local people couldn’t get away with