The Endless Fight: Collection of Short Stories

By John H. Bishop

The Endless Fight is a mirror showing us seventy-five years of American love, loss, family, and occasionally redemption. In the serene wilderness of the Adirondack Park in the 1960s, a widow and a mistress unpredictable must overcome the legacy of a deadly railroad accident, while four decades later, a mother watches her son cut across the glassy surface of the lake before his unique disclosure. In the picturesque New Jersey town of Princeton, a couple gives shelter in a snowstorm to a man and woman who are not what they appear, and two decades later, a son loses the father he's just come to know honestly. In the dusty, flat expanse of Lubbock, Texas, a trailer-dwelling cowboy seeks justice for a murdered dog and a discarded life. Their diverse struggles, and the authentic (if sometimes unsettling) resolutions they reach, are at the same time nostalgic and immediately recognizable.

"A powerful collection of stories that read like classics blooming with societal nuance, heartbreak, disappointment, and family upheaval, all told through the chords of a rock-solid voice." -- Jonathan Starke, author of the award-winning novel, You've Got Something Coming


Bishop's characters are feisty contenders, battling miseries and frustrations with others and, just as often, with themselves, in these well-depicted stories that leave you rooting for them to be still standing at the final bell. --D. E. Lee, author of the award-winning novel, The Sky After Rain

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664184831

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by John H. Bishop.

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: 07/21/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

831234

Contents

Introduction

Famous Quotes on Short Stories

THE ADIRONDACK REGION

The Track

The Adirondack Cabin

Hacker-Craft

FLORIDA

The Masquerade Ball

Beach Boy’s Sunset

The Torn Cocktail Dress

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

The Good Samaritans

Requiem for a Warrior

LUBBOCK, TEXAS, 1965

Catching the Morning Train to Dallas

HOMECOMING

Marine Hero’s Homecoming

Acknowledgements

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

I HAVE TOILED for many years learning and practicing the craft of writing short fiction. It’s been an arduous journey. I can equate my attempt to Spain’s famous pilgrimage of Camino del Santiago. This famous pilgrimage I once completed by tourist bus, not with a backpack and walking staff. As we meandered through the mountains and seashores of Northern Spain, I felt like every historic pilgrim, an unforgettable passage.

This is the famous pilgrimage of Saint James, whose buried remains lie at the end. The northern route starts in San Sebastian, winding through Bilbao and Santander to Santiago de Compostela. Annually 300,000 pilgrims follow the Scallop guideposts over scenic mountains, along dirt roads and paths, often sleeping in historic monasteries. One pilgrim said that completing the walk of five hundred miles, with surprising elevations, and inhospitable weather provides a once-in-a-lifetime sense of achievement.

Now as I pass through the mountains of clever plots and the seashores of authentic dialogue, I practice this craft of writing short fiction. My stories conclude with a resolution, not always happy, but hopefully true and sometimes redeeming. This is my pilgrimage.

You might ask how I picked these subjects. I don’t write outlines like many famous authors, such as forty-page-outline-Grisham. Instead, I start with a kernel of an idea, and I allow Google search; Google images, and Google maps to be my Scallop guideposts to completion. I will write about where I live. The geography and weather, the idiosyncratic flaws of their citizens, and finally, their uniqueness creates the essence of my short stories. I enjoy poring over the research journals and newspapers of the periods where I place the action—one story occurs in 1945, another 1965. My characters diverge from the most successful people, to many who are ordinary citizens, and several are down-and-out personalities. This diverse group of storytellers will narrate their endless fights for you.

My business career has taught me to finish projects on time and on budget. Writing short stories allows me to follow this practice. But, I have learned you can always reduce your words, even after you think it was for the last time. The reader demands only the essence. I love short declarative sentences and brisk dialogue. I leave mysteries for the reader to figure out, but provide them several bread crumbs to follow. Many of my characters look back at what might have been in their lives, careers, and relationships. Betrayals or disappointments that cause these reflections are central to each story.

I organize these stories by settings, where I have lived. My wife, Dianne, and our children have owned a cottage for many years in the Adirondack Mountains. The Adirondack Park’s creation occurred 129 years ago, and fifty percent of its 6 million acres are privately owned. Its success results from the easy drive from Montreal, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The rich history stretches back to the Great Camps built in the wilderness of the mid-1800s by the wealthy Vanderbilt and Morgan families.

The opening story, The Track, centers on the spa city of health, history, and horse racing, Saratoga Springs, between Albany and Montreal. Professor Alexander Atwater tears up winning tickets as he wrecks his own life and the lives of the women he loves. Next, The Adirondack Cabin recounts its retired psychiatrist owner’s struggle with the freezing weather and her fight to survive all year. One of her demons is ex-husband Harry. Her son, Joe, provides a surprise she never expects. Finally, Catherine Schuler, the grand matriarch of Lake George’s most prestigious yacht club, will speed you on her "Hacker-Craft ‘’ to learn of the elite’s prejudices of past years. These three stories lean on the history of the Adirondacks and provide a feel for the environment and the stoic people of the North Country.

My family has lived in the Sunshine State of Florida for almost two decades. The thing I have learned about Floridians is that most came from somewhere else. And they brought their emotional baggage with them. You’ll find some of the most sophisticated retirement community members who each came from somewhere else, in The Masquerade Ball. All are attempting to recreate one of the most famous nights in entertainment history. During their charade, one of the most Cain/Abel-like betrayals occurs. You have to balance those characters with Sally Gillespie, who had her blue-collar life restored in one afternoon. Beach Boy’s Sunset, is Sally’s short and decisive reclaiming of her life. The seedy life of Attorney Richard Bowers turns surreal after his wife surprises him in The Torn Cocktail Dress. His attempts to deal with her surprise become more weird by the moment. Plenty of heat, mosquitoes, beaches, and troubled people attempt to recreate what they had before.

The picturesque town of Princeton, New Jersey, where I lived periodically, is the background for two of my stories. Princeton was first named in1724, fifty years before the Revolutionary War, and is home to the fourth oldest university in America, Princeton University. The class of 1771 graduated the fourth President, James Madison. How’s that for history? Crowe and Nancy Stockton find themselves snowbound in The Good Samaritans with two strangers as their uninvited overnight guests. When the two couples are forced together by an incredible snowstorms, it will shock you to learn what they find out about each other. Requiem for a Warrior tells of international cultural conflicts, coupled with generational wars, and the greatest geriatric mystery of all, death. Hamn Richardson and his father, Austin, imbued in Princeton’s history remember back to World War II. They attempt to unravel Austin’s life as they march together toward his final sunset.

Lubbock, located in the middle of the Texas Panhandle, is rich in agriculture, cattle, cowboys, and scorching days and wintry nights. I often visit several of my children who live there. One of my favorite stories is the tale of Luther Boudreaux Jr. of Lubbock, Texas. Getting cowboy Luther authentic required many rewrites. He is a down-and-out cowboy who will intrigue you as he faces his disappointments that explain his life.

The final story, Marine Hero’s Homecoming describes the World War II return of Marine Corps Lieutenant Franklin Buells to his sisters and fiancée who are at war with each other. Despite their long-standing societal flaws, citizens of rural Alabama in 1945, celebrate Franklin’s return to many of the free-for-alls that he left before the victory over the Japanese.

As I reflect on the struggles of my characters, they all seem to have several common characteristics. They are attempting to fight their way through serious battles in their lives. Many have fought these continuously, without success. Often they are unstable people with volatile histories.

Researching and improving these stories has occupied many of my hours. I hope as I scratched the surface in learning this craft of writing short fiction, these final versions are enjoyable. I feel now as if I can see over the hills the Cathedral Santiago de Compostela, but I still have miles to go.

I have enclosed several quotes by famous authors about short stories. Their attitudes and guidance can help you understand this craft of writing short fiction. If you read the quotations by Eldora Welty, Pulitzer Prize-winning author famous for short stories, you will hear, Less is resolved, more is suggested, perhaps.

My favorite quote is by Ray Bradberry.

Who wrote the most famous short stories? Indeed, world-famous Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald authored many. During their writing lives, magazines like Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Reader’s Digest, and Esquire have had an insatiable appetite for short fiction. Unfortunately in today’s digital world it’s decidedly less.

Two of the most famous Russian authors, Chekhov, and Tolstoy wrote many short stories that are simple but moving. For these two authors, every human being has meaning. They write to make us care about what happens, challenging, antagonizing, and, yes, outraging us. These Russian authors wrote at the turn of the 1900s, but their characters and stories are pertinent today.

Flannery O’Connor wrote in 1955, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and its Southern gothic style is acclaimed as one of the best short stories ever written. This apocalyptic story of a grotesque family car trip in rural Georgia will captivate you. A truly classic short story! You can find a copy on the internet.

I hope you have enjoyed this pilgrimage, metaphorically observed in my short stories, and some awaking as you follow my Scallop guideposts of bread crumbs. These stories lead you to the pristine Adirondack mountains, sweltering Florida beaches, historic Princeton streets, cowboy Texas, and rural Alabama of 1945. Read on!

John H. Bishop

May 31, 2021

FAMOUS QUOTES

ON SHORT STORIES

F IND THE KEY emotion; this may be all you need to know to find your short story. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

A short story is confined to one mood, to which everything in the story pertains. Characters, setting, time, events, are all subject to the mood. And you can try more ephemeral, more fleeting things in a story – you can work more by suggestion – than in a novel. Less is resolved, more is suggested, perhaps. – Eudora Welty

Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row. – Ray Bradbury

When seriously explored, the short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant. Whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium. – Truman Capote

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order. – Tobias Wolff

Not that the story needs to be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. Henry David Thoreau

I’ll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2. – O. Henry –

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart. – Neil Gaiman

I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice. – Andre Dubus"

It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power. – Raymond Carver

In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinetmaker is to a house carpenter. – Annie Proulx

I want my stories to be something about life that causes people to say, not, oh, isn’t that the truth, but to feel some kind of reward from the writing, and that doesn’t mean that it has to be a happy ending or anything, but just that everything the story tells moves the reader in such a way that you feel you are a different person when you finish. – Alice Munro

GettyImages-97860037.jpg

THE ADIRONDACK

REGION

THE TRACK

C URLED ON HIS side, a naked Professor Alexander Atwood, grabbed her buttocks and pulled her to him. The afternoon rays shifted her irises from hazel to jade.

Room 309 was on the top floor of the Sagamore Hotel, perched high on a gray granite rock formation. The resort jutted into the deep azure waters of Lake George. Brilliant crimson and purple shafts of sunset flooded the horizon, gliding through the shutter slats to float across the bed leaving images of prison bars across their naked bodies.

When’s your wife expecting you? asked Meredith.

Home by nine.

I want you again, Meredith said.

No words aroused him more. But she pulled back and looked up at him with a teasing half-smile. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone else.

A self-satisfied laugh from Alex. What’s that supposed to mean? He knew his lust enslaved him to this woman. These rendezvous began only four months ago.

With a mighty swipe of her legs, the sheets flew away. It’s only you darling.

From an up-and-coming investigative reporter, that’s surprising.

Easy to investigate what you want, she said, rolling on her back and spreading her long legs. She followed with a soft whisper. Again?

He could still smell her pleasure from the last time. I told you nine.

Her jade-green eyes drowned him. Plenty of time even for Skidmore’s youngest English Department Chairman.

September Song played on the radio on the night table.

September for us? She added, I think the closing refrain is ‘these few precious days, I’ll spend with you.’ But, today I share you with your wife and the track.

Missed the track last Sunday, didn’t I?

You and those damn ponies, said Meredith with her tangled blonde curls in disarray against the pillow. A broadcaster broke in. Flash report! Today, there has been a massacre in Vietnam at My Lai by American soldiers.

He rose on an elbow. What the hell did he say?

In a single motion, she rolled over, switched off the radio, and lay back down between the bars of sunlight.

44788.png

Alex arrived before nine at his home, a two-story townhouse on Railroad Alley, in Saratoga Springs. Similar homes stood on narrow lots, side by side, like miniatures on a train set. He knew the mystique of this town and the horses were the elixir of life for him.

In the entrance hall, he tossed his gray fedora onto the coat rack and hung his suit jacket. A lock of his hair fell over his brow as he ambled into the living room. He unbuttoned his vest from his brown tweed suit and stretched his long arms above his head and let out a sigh. He felt spent.

Two brown stuffed chairs sat in the tiny living room crammed around a fake stand-up mahogany TV. His wife, Helen, stood twisting the dials. She smiled