American Tales

By Steven McCann

My American Tales are four novellas, longer than short stories, shorter than novels. I tried to capture in them experiences centering on four different stages of life; childhood, teen years, early adulthood and middle-age. Each story has its own ordeal, or trauma. A young boy just shy of puberty is stricken with quadriplegia from falling off a swing set. A teenage basketball player copes with severe acne and adolescent insecurity. A young married man struggles against a mother-in-law bent on breaking up his marriage. A maintenance worker loses a beloved wife in an auto accident, and having given up any interest in the possibility of another woman entering his life, suddenly falls passionately in love with a Russian immigrant and young mother who professes to hate men, until she recognizes a pure, unconditional love offered from an unexpected source. A novella may take more than one sitting to read, but it can possess both the sudden revelatory impact of a short-story and the grandeur of a novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664169463

Steven McCann

Steven McCann is the author of novels, novellas, stories, plays and poems, and a 2021 recipient of a City Artist Corps Grant. He was born in 1948, graduated from Spring Valley High School in New York where he excelled in three sports. He enrolled at the University of Kansas, and later at NYU, majored in English and received a BA. His work experience is varied; nightwatchman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hotel detective at the Plaza, home renovator and shipping manager. In 2005 he was stricken with paraplegia and has been wheelchair bound since. He lives in New York City and remains passionate about Central Park, the Shakespeare festival, the Met Museum, Lincoln Center, the opera, and the people of New York.

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Copyright © 2021 by Steven McCann.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/03/2021

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Contents

A View of The River

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Genesis

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Laundry Basket

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

A Field of Hearts

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

A View of The River

Chapter 1

What are you stoppin for?

It’s old up there. Those beams are old. Maybe they got spiders on them.

Come on, Man. There ain’t no spiders up here.

How do you know? You said you hardly ever go up there.

Look, do you want me to show you or not? You said it was jus bull, so I’m showin you.

Why don’t you bring it down, so we can see it down here.

The staircase was narrow, made of wood that had never been painted for the nearly eighty years that the two-bedroom bungalow had existed. The air was dusty and dry from the attic above, making Hubie even more impatient as he stood near the top looking down at his two friends.

It won’t take more than a minute. I’m not gonna beg you to come up. It’s not like I want people to know about this.

We promised you more than ten times. Don’t make us go through that again.

You know I never showed this to anyone. So if you don’t come on, I ain’t gonna feel bad comin back down again. Hubie paused. There ain’t spiders, Man, just a nest of poisonous bats, but they’re sleepin now.

Hubie kept a straight face that Clarence, in the middle of the staircase with a hand on the railing, took as a challenge.

Shoot! He gave out, clumping up the staircase loudly with his head down. Hubie walked into the attic and Clarence turned from the top angrily to Maurice, still holding the door at the bottom.

Well, come on! You got to have someone hold your hand?

Maurice wasn’t so brave. He took the stairs cautiously and quietly. The attic was low pitched and the boys had to stay near the center beam to stand up straight without worrying about their heads. The floor was made of bare dusty blanks and the rafters were desiccated to a rusty color. In between the rafters ran sheathing with the ends of nails sticking through about one inch. To the sides of the single gable room sat cardboard boxes, old window screens, trunks, several tall mirrors, dusted and aged to misted silver, and a few pieces of smaller furniture; lamps and tables. All of it was dusty like the floor boards and rafters, giving off an almost suffocating, acrid odor. At each end of the room the triangular, vertical wall had a small double hung window with a shade, brown and tattered and also eighty years of age.

I know there’s wasps up here. I ain’t comin here in the summertime.

Hubie didn’t answer. He was bent over an old trunk near the window at the farthest end. When the two boys approached him, he unsnapped the locks and opened it. He did not look back up, but waited until he felt their feet standing close and knew they were looking down into the cloth lined inside of the trunk. There were several stacks of old shirts and pants and a man’s leather jacket, folded up. Hubie placed his hand on the jacket and lifted it, revealing his treasure underneath.

Damn! Hissed Clarence. That’s real! I can tell from here.

Course its real.

Damn, Man.

I don’t think we should be messin with it, if its real. We oughta call the police and have them come and take it ‘fore it kills someone, said Maurice, the smallest and most sensible of the three.

What’s wrong with you, Man? You got shit for brains or somethin? The police would throw us in jail.

Clarence had suddenly lost his fear of bats and wasps, empowered by what he looked at. Hubie picked it up, lifting it with one hand and placing it flatly in the other and then standing and holding it pointed away into the corner of the attic.

That better not be loaded, said Maurice, bravely holding his ground, but with big eyes. Lots of times they go off course people don’t know they’re loaded.

It ain’t loaded, said Hubie, the proprietor, in a confident voice.

What is it, a thirty-eight? asked Clarence.

Nah, only a twenty-two.

Looks bigger. I bet it could kill someone.

Sure it could, Man. It’s a gun, said Hubie.

The boys stood looking at it reverently and silently for a minute, then Hubie kneeled down and laid it in the trunk and placed the leather jacket neatly on top.

You got bullets? asked Clarence.

Sure, I got bullets.

Where?

I ain’t tellin that.

I thought we was your friends?

Don’t matter who you are. I ain’t tellin no one.

Where you get it, anyway? asked Maurice.

His dad left it.

Your pa was in the service, wasn’t he?

‘Yeah."

How come he ain’t here?

How do I know, Man? How come half the pas in the world ain’t there? You think I know? My Mom’s a bitch, but shit, he coulda takin me with him.

He jus left?

I was four years old, Man. I don’t know the details, except that he disappeared.

How you know about this?

I jus found it.

You look through all this other stuff? Maybe there’s more. Maybe there’s rifles, machine guns? Clarence asked.

Shit. How’s there gonna be a machine gun up here? demanded Maurice, feeling he was the smarter of the three, if not the bravest.

We gotta get out of here. My Mom’ll be drivin up soon.

How come she ain’t here? Does she work on Saturday, too?

She’s screwin around with her boyfriend.

Don’t say that about your Ma.

Shit. You think I care? She’s a bitch. I’ll say it to her face.

The boys clumped down the wood staircase and into the hallway, breathing deeply of the cleaner air downstairs as Hubie shut the attic door firmly behind him.

Let’s shoot some hoop, said Clarence as they walked out into the afternoon sunshine.

He ain’t got no ball, and you ain’t either, and I don’t want to go all the way home, protested Maurice.

There’ll be one down there. Someone’ll be there. Come on, insisted Clarence, stepping up onto the sidewalk. No one argued this and they began to saunter down the block together. The one story bungalow house they had just left was a mite tattered looking on the outside, like the sidewalk and the other old houses along the street, which were of various designs, some Victorian, some bungalow like Hubie’s, some two family; all built from eighty to one hundred years before with small plots of land in front and around them; united by their age and their slightly unkempt appearance like the boys themselves, each of whom wore old clothes and sneakers. Hubie was a sandy haired White boy with an early growth of pimples around his nose, and Clarence and Maurice were Black. There were greater differences to them than their skin color at this time of their lives; Maurice’s shyness and intellectual proclivity, Clarence’s talented athleticism, and Hubie’s stubborn toughness.

We was right behind you in the crowded hallway when you said that, Clarence said, discussing the last of these attributes. You shouldn’t be mouthin off to Brodie like that, Man. He’s a tough dude.

He ain’t so tough, said Hubie.

He’s bigger than you and a year older and he’s tough. I seen him beat on some kid once. Don’t mess with him, Hubie.

‘Shit. He ain’t tough at all."

You always say that about everyone. Ain’t you afraid of nothin?

No, I ain’t.

Well, you better learn to be.

They suddenly became fascinated by a freighter in the middle of the river as they crossed the street that led down to the train station. From their high perch they had a clear view out over a broad section of the Hudson. Discussing the largest barges they’d ever seen, they walked on, coming up to the small playground. A younger boy they knew played alone on the court. Clarence at once recognized that the basketball was the cheaper kind, without inner lining, because it made a loud noise similar to a beachball. He complained about it, but went over to play anyway. Maurice and Hubie moved to the old swing set on the grass to the side, tied into the ground by footings of concrete which had risen over the years and gave only limited stability if the rider were an older boy and swung higher than moderation. They rode the swings until Maurice hopped off, objecting to Hubie’s altitude.

You’ll break your ass, Dude.

No, I won’t.

Hubie took a leap and landed out on the grass, falling over, but getting up with laughter.

Crazy Dude. Hey, can you do this?

It was rare for Maurice to challenge anyone athletically, but he had learned a gymnast’s trick of holding the chains of the swing set, turning himself upside down and then coming back the opposite way, until he was standing on the swing seat again. Hubie had never done this before, but immediately accepted the challenge. It took him two tries to turn himself upside down, but on the second he mastered it.

That’s nothin, he gave out triumphantly.

Shit. Anyone can do that, called out the boy playing with Clarence. If Winston was here, he could do it from the top.

Bullshit, said Clarence, poised for a shot.

I saw him.

What’s he do?

He holds himself upside down, hanging from his legs and then drops himself coming around to his feet.

Bullshit. He don’t do nothin like that. That’s just bullshit, said Clarence, catching up with his rebound, grabbing the ball and challenging the younger boy.

He can, too. You wanna bet? You just afraid to do it yourself, that’s all.

You do it, you little punk.

I’m younger than you.

Yeah, shit, said Maurice.

You’re just afraid, insisted the younger boy.

Hubie began to climb the side of the swing set.

Don’t do it. He’s bullshitin us, Maurice said in dismay as Hubie climbed the swingset.

Shit, that’s high, said Clarence, looking across the court with the ball in his hands.

That’s too high to do that, Hubie. Don’t do it, Maurice said. Maurice had moved away from the swing set in alarm. All of them held their breath. Hubie hung himself upside down by his legs, and with his arms down, began to swing himself.

Is this what he did? Hubie called out from the bar. The younger boy didn’t answer, for he too was scared. There was only a moment’s pause, before Hubie released himself. His effort was incredibly brave for a boy who had never done gymnastics. ‘It’s really true,’ thought Clarence, watching. ‘Hubie ain’t afraid of nothin.’ But the heel of his foot hit the bar, and half swinging like a plane shot down while circling for a landing, he fell straight to the ground. All the boys ran to the swing set.

"Don’t touch him,’ Clarence said, standing closest and warding them off with outstretched arms.

He’s awake. Look, his eyes are open.

In those eyes spun a world of dizzying colors, faces and shapes, and Hubie, feeling no pain, nor any sensation whatsoever, might well have just been dreaming.

Chapter 2

Good morning, Penny.

Good morning, Ann!

The slender forty-year-old nurse, mother of two, pushed the vitals station on its trundle wheels through the open doorway of the hospital room.

I’ve got your meds. I’m going to take your vitals and cath you, and then after breakfast, I’d like to get you into the bathroom to see if you can have a bowel movement. Look at that! They brought you a wheelchair! Did they show you how to use it?

Yes. They brought it yesterday afternoon and I went with them up and down the hallway. I’ll be using it today.

Did they give you a schedule yet?

Yes, Ann. It’s attached to the chair.

Good morning, Penny, called a nursing assistant from the doorway with a colleague standing behind her. I’m Ellen and this is Madeline. We’re going to take you for your first shower this morning.

The two nursing assistants were dressed in loose fitting pale green pants and sleeveless shirts, in contrast to Ann’s white nurse’s uniform.

I want to get her into the bathroom for a bowel movement first. Can you take her later?

We can come back at eight-thirty. Does she have a class this morning?

I have physical therapy at ten.

We’ll be back in plenty of time.

The nursing assistants departed into the traffic passing beyond Penny’s open doorway. From the opposite side of her room, a warm morning sun spread itself through an alcove window, brightening the pale yellow walls, the tall birch wood cabinet and chairs, and the bouquet of pink and red roses sitting on a small table opposite. Ann pulled the surface of the bedside table over Penny’s inclining stomach, placed four pills onto a napkin and handed her a small paper cup filled with cold cranberry juice.

A new patient was brought in last night, a young boy with an injury almost exactly the same as yours.

Penny swallowed. She was able to take each pill by herself and drink from the cup with her one good hand. In the three days at the rehab hospital her right arm had become about eighty percent functional, although weak, and she had gained about thirty percent function with her left. When she finished drinking, Ann pulled the table away again and wrapped the blood pressure band around her arm, fastening its velcro. She removed the cover to the digital thermometer which she placed in Penny’s mouth.

Very good! she exclaimed softly, unfastening the velcro with a rasping tear after a moment’s wait and reaching for the thermometer again.

How do the arms feel? Any change since yesterday?

I think the fingers of the left hand feel a mite stronger.

Great, Penny! As soon as the left arm becomes strong enough, I’m going to teach you to cath yourself. Then the big thing will be for you to transfer yourself to the wheelchair.

With quick, dexterous movements, Ann screeched the curtain along the ceiling runner closed around Penny’s bed, reached for a pair of rubber gloves from a box in a wall cabinet and stretched the gloves onto her hands. Then she drew Penny’s cotton blanket down and her hospital gown up and placed the cathing kit she took from another cabinet onto the bed. It was just below Penny’s vision, looking down from her neck brace.

This is your third day eating solid foods. You should be having a bowel movement soon, Ann said as she cathed Penny. I’m going to leave this diaper off you, Honey, and we’ll put another one on you after the shower.

Her hands paused silently for several minutes, then Penny saw her drawing the catheter, a slender plastic tube, out and away from her loins. Ann lifted the small plastic basin which had been the container of the kit and was now half filled with urine, up onto the bedside table. She took the catheter and a small tube of lubricant she had used, along with some antiseptic wipes, wrapped them together in the napkins she had laid between Penny’s legs, and tossed them into a nearby waste basket. She pulled Penny’s hospital gown down over her again and the blanket back up onto her chest, and yanked aside the curtain with another brusque screech Then she slowly lifted the urine filled basin with both hands and disappeared into the bathroom on Penny’s left, where she flushed it into the toilet. Before returning, she discarded the empty basin and her rubber gloves into a waste basket.

Penny began watching nurses and attendants passing in the hallway where their bustle brought life to the awakening hospital. Suddenly Doctor Mason, and his assistant, Doctor Kharitata, entered the room on their morning rounds.

Good morning, Penny! I see they’ve brought you a chair! It looks like a new one, doesn’t it?

I’ll be back to move you into the bathroom after breakfast, said Ann, not looking at the two doctors as she pushed the vitals station on its squeaky trundle wheels out of the room.

Doctor Mason was only a year or two over thirty and from Ohio. His assistant was a small slender young woman from Bombay who had bright dark eyes and a girlish laugh, very deferential to him. Doctor Mason had a slight mustache which appeared to have been difficult to grow and short brown hair which like his skin had a babyish softness. He was almost always smiling and could get a cheerful response out of nearly any of his patients.

Breathe deeply…. That’s good… Fine. Fine. Excellent! He said, finishing the auscultation of Penny’s chest which he’d done by pressing the stethoscope over her hospital gown. He asked her to lift her right arm and then her left, which she could only move slightly, and to move the fingers of each hand. Then he pressed gently against her legs and feet in several places.

Feel any difference, Penny?

My left fingers have gotten a little stronger, although I still can’t lift that arm.

It will come, Penny. You’ve only been here less than a week. You’re making remarkable progress. Will you be riding in the chair by yourself today? Did they train you, yesterday?

Yes, and I have my schedule already. I’m beginning classes at ten o’clock.

Terrific! You’ll feel so much better, just being able to move around. Would you like a hat, too? I think you could use one.

Where could I get one? Do they sell them in the gift shop?

They might, but we’ll get you one.

What team do you like? asked Doctor Kharitata.

I guess, Mets.

I’m not sure we have one of those. I know we have an Oriole hat.

How can you say that to her! Penny is a New Yorker! Manhattanite! Broadway! Right, Penny?

Right, Doctor Mason.

I’ll find her one.

Can I go outside the hospital in the chair, Doctor Mason?

You can get right onto that patio just outside your window. Just take the automatic doorway off the lounge that’s beyond our unit. And you can also go out the front entrance and sit along the walkway there. At this time of the year, we have some azaleas just blooming. Do you like Starbucks coffee?

Can I get that, too?

We have a Starbucks machine in our cafeteria. You can get yourself a latte, just like you did in Manhattan. I must be running, Penny. You’re doing great. Good luck with the classes.

Thanks, Doctor Mason, Doctor Kharitata. Oh, Doctor, Mason! I have a question.

Yes, Penny. Anything.

Nurse Ann told me you have another patient with almost the same injury as I have.

Yes, we do. A fourteen-year old boy. We don’t normally take children, but he lives close by and his mother is a single parent, not well off, and requested that he be brought here.

Is he completely paralyzed?

He has slight movement in the fingers of his right hand.

Was it a car accident like mine?

No, he fell from a swing set. Someone dared him. Very sad. But like all my patients, there is hope. Perhaps you two will become friendly.

I would like to.

He’s able to talk, but says very little right now. But that will change. In another week, with some movement in his right hand, we’ll have him in a chair and moving about like you. Well, I’ve got to run, Penny. Enjoy your day, your classes, and your coffee. I’m a fiend for coffee! I’d love to have a second cup right now. Well, goodbye!

The two doctors had no sooner departed from the doorway when another new face appeared, a tall, very erect young woman, barely out of college, dressed in a skirt and blouse partially visible under a full-length white smock tied at the waist. Her mien was closer to that of a scholar than a health care professional. This was Penny’s speech therapist, responsible for teaching her to bite and swallow her food after her spinal injury.

I’m okay by myself, today, Laura.

I’d like to be here just to watch you, Penny.

Is the breakfast cart in the hallway yet?

It’s only a few doors away. Can you adjust yourself in bed?… Very good. Look at that wheelchair! A spanking new one! Have they showed you how? Excellent! Here’s your breakfast.

Halston? asked an elderly woman in her sixties, dressed in black slacks, a white blouse and a plastic shower cap covering her head as she advanced into the room. Responding to Penny’s smile and utterance, she laid a breakfast tray on the surface of the bedside table, then nodded graciously to Penny’s polite thank you, and walked slowly and soundlessly out again.

Don’t help me, Laura. I want to see if I can do everything myself, today.

Laura positioned the arm of the table over the Penny’s midsection and Penny adjusted the incline of the bed, until her chin was almost touching the covered platter containing her eggs. Using her right hand and part of her left, and concentrating on every slight move, she uncovered the platter, the plastic wrapped utensils, and began to eat her breakfast. A yogurt, juice, milk, and a small dish of hot cereal came with the eggs. Penny objected to being helped even the slightest bit, pulling off the paper straw wrapper and even opening the juice and milk containers by herself.

Don’t! I want to see if I can do it myself, she said in a scolding voice as insistently as she had ever spoken as a manager at Citibank.

I won’t touch a thing, if you don’t want me to. I’m only here to help you, Penny. You’re doing beautifully, though.

I had very strong hands before this happened to me.

You’ll have strong hands again, I’m sure. Your right hand is incredibly strong even now. I’m almost afraid to shake hands with you.

For several minutes, Penny ate her breakfast, while Laura stood at a respectful distance watching her.

I think you can manage the rest. But I’m going to stop in for a few more days and just watch. We still have to be careful, until the neck brace is off and your movement is a little better. When are they taking the bandages off your nose and cheek?

This week some time.

That will help, too.

How are you doing, Penny? asked nurse Ann, stepping into the doorway again in the middle of her busy morning.

She’s almost finished, Laura volunteered, while Penny drank her juice with a straw.

I want to get her into the toilet here, before they take her for the shower.

Do you have enough people?

I’ll get two assistants.

Give her another ten minutes.

I’ll be back.

Nurse Ann disappeared.

Did they give you a schedule?

Yes. I’m doing PT from ten til twelve, and an hour of OT in the afternoon.

A big day. Well, you don’t need me, so I’ll move on. Let me help you move the tray back.

No, don’t! I want to do it myself.

Okay. Okay, Penny. Laura laughed.

Struggling with her right hand and the angle her head was forced to remain at because of the neck brace, Penny still managed to push away the tray and table.

Goodbye, Laura.

The juice and scrambled eggs gave Penny immediate energy and she felt eager to challenge more of her body. The day before had been the first time she’d been helped out of bed to a sitting position, when they placed her in the electric wheelchair. She had three people from physical therapy to do all the moving, lying inert and following their instruction, but now she wanted to do more of it herself, to get an idea how much stronger she would have to be to do her transfers.

What took place after her meal disheartened and discouraged her. Nurse Ann bustled into the room followed by two young women from PT dressed in street clothes with ID badges on their shirts; strong, agile women highly skilled at moving patients. Yet while they moved her into the wheelchair without great difficulty, they had a bad time of it getting her into the bathroom and seated on the toilet. For the first time, Penny felt the enormous weight and deadness of the four fifths of her body that remained inert. Moving from the wheelchair at a somewhat awkward angle, she held as tightly as she could to the handicapped rail beside the toilet to lift herself as the three other women, wedged into the small space, lifted the rest, landing her clumsily onto the toilet seat.

She couldn’t tell whether she was squarely seated and couldn’t remain in the bathroom by herself, because she wasn’t able to keep herself upright with only one hand. Nor could she tell if she was moving her bowels. With her hospital gown brushed to the side, two of the women remained close, trying with a mixture of professionalism and solicitude to make her feel less humiliated.

Can you feel any sensation in your lower body? Anything below the waist, in the bowels?

No.

Try to breathe deeply and push.

I am trying.

After several minutes:

Okay, you’re not able to right now. We’ll try again after lunch.

The move back was just as awkward. Before they maneuvered the chair out of the cramped dimensions of the bathroom, the green shirted nurses’ assistants appeared in the doorway, pushing the shower chair, a connivence with four small wheels, a seat with an opening like a toilet seat, and strong arm supports that pivoted down on hinges. All five women combined their efforts transferring Penny into the shower chair. Again, she felt the unwieldy mass of her body, the enormity of her heavy inert legs that had to be lifted one by one like sacks of grain. An anger of defiance shot up in her and an envy she had never felt before in her life, looking around at the movements, the arms and legs and active trunks of the other young women.

She felt a sudden fascination at people entering the room and passing in the hallway; a fascination with legs and their movement. Looking down at herself again in her inertness, the anger welled up and she felt a fierce desire to pull, even drag this inertness to her destination. But there was relief and again change, another new experience as reassuring and