THE OLD HOBO AND OTHER SHORT STORIES BY JOHN EDWIN PARKES

By John Parkes

The Old Hobo and Other Short Stories

THE OLD HOBO: It is mid-1900 when a battered old hobo trudges up along a California Highway and stops to rest at a roadside rest stop. He sees, liking to himself, a weathered old oak tree barely surviving within the rocks on the mountainside opposite the roadside rest stop. He is taken back when a young boy at the roadside rest wants to carve his initials in the tree with his pocketknife. It is stopped when his parents intercede. The old hobo bids a farewell to the tree and trudges on.
THE SUN WILL SHINE: In the mid-1900s in a state mental hospital, a patient looks to a liking to himself by playing a solitaire marble game.
THE GOLD MINE: A city slicker stops in for a beer in the bar of a derelict old gold mining town. While there, he encounters an old- timer viewing his gold samples and his dreams of developing a lost, secret gold mine. The city slicker facetiously plays the old timer along. So, is the gold mine real or in the old-timer's imagination?
THE TENEMENT FLAT: In the mid-1900s a factory worker at the end of his workday comes home to his tenement flat only to meet and confront his wife over the fact that the last of their eight children, a daughter, has ran away with a sailor. An intense argument arises, family dynamics are unleased, the raising of their children, she being a boring, cold wife, his infidelity and his no-nothing job. With his pistol that she has taken, she confronts him, to finish him, to end it all. However, so, the tables are turned when, she being distracted, he gets the pistol, shoots her, and walks out.
HE WAS NOT ONE OF US: The flimsy shack with its earthed floor shakes and sways incessantly from the raging, howling snowstorm outside, as the men, but for one, huddle around a heated potbellied stove under a swaying lantern telling their tales and yarns. They laugh, they joke, and they chuckle to keep their minds off the freezing cold. The one lies on the floor, his back against the wall, wrapped in a sleeping bag reading a book, when a blast of snow and cold air blows in, as the door opens, and a young stranger enters, shaking from the cold. Quietly he steps in, seats himself on the floor, and removes his frozen boots. He warms himself, then joins the group at the stove, joining on the laughter – but so, "you're not one of us," says one, "you've got to leave," says another. He puts on his boots. The cold air and snow blows in as he leaves.
COUNTER ENCOUNTER AT THE MEAT COUNTER: The youngster steals watermelons from the man's watermelon patch and the youngster is confronted the next day at the meat counter by the man with the accusation the he, the youngster is a hoodlum, a ne'er-do-well, and future criminal to their community. So stated, but in time the youngster has to go to war, to be engaged in fierce heated military operations in South Korea. In it all, the youngster, survives, and in years returns home, marries the fairest of the young ladies in the community and moves into the house next to the man's. Another encounter at the meat counter, the aging man now is thoughtful, with reconciliation, resulting in an invitation, the wives to make fudge, and yes from the watermelon patch to have a watermelon.
THE WEEKEND GUEST: the boy soldier knocks on the door and is warmly welcomed in by the man of the house for he has been invited in for the weekend by the late teenage young lady of the house. She is not the daughter of the family but the daughter to the sister of the man's wife who because of drugs has given her over to the family to be cared for. However, she is flirtatious to all of the boys in the area and the man is afraid she will become pregnant and bring shame on the family. So, marriage to the boy soldier is the ideal. The weekend visit is extremely pleasant. The young lady invites the boy soldier to bed with her. Out the door he goes.
A DRIVER'S SECURITY: In the mid-1900s in a cold, dark night, t

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667803883

John Parkes

JOHN PARKES has a lifelong fascination with beer and is the founder of Red Rock Brewery, a traditional family-run six-barrel brewer in Southwest England.

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ISBN: 9781667803883

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE OLD HOBO

THE SUN WILL SHINE

THE GOLD MINE

THE TENEMENT FLAT

HE WAS NOT ONE OF US

COUNTER ENCOUNTER AT THE MEAT COUNTER

THE WEEKEND GUEST

A DRIVER’S SECURITY

CHARLIE THE BARBER

THE ROAD TO DENIO

THE OLD HOBO

The old hobo, in shabby clothes, his beard hung low, his eyes deep-set, his rumpled hat pulled down, trudged slowly up along the highway of California’s Pacific coast.  The terrain here was steep and rocky, but California’s road department had cut out from the mountainside an extensive four-lane highway, slicing through the rugged terrain of a mountainside here adjacent to the state’s jagged, rocky coastline.

A steady wind blew hard from the ocean and the old hobo had to hold on tight to his hat lest it blow away.  With head bowed, he pushed up the hill against the wind while his baggy pants flap about his legs and cars at high speed whipped by him.  His arm was lifted up and crooked about a satchel set in the sweat of his shoulder.  The wind had already dried the sweat under his arms and on his back, leaving white streaks of salt in the wrinkles of his shirt.  The old hobo trudged slowly on up and soon came to a crest at the mountainside.  Here he stopped, paused, looked about, then off at the highway’s coastal side saw a broad landscaped area, a square of planted grass, a parking area, picnic tables, barbeque pits, a water fountain, trash containers, and to the far side, a high metal-barred railing.  He studied it, looked it over, and then noticed the sign, reading

ROADSIDE PARK

Courtesy of the California Department of Highways

TOURIST

Please Throw Trash in Containers

The roadside park, perched here at the hilltop off from the highway, overlooked the ocean.  Shortly, the hobo meandered in, looked about, inspected the facilities, and then continued over to the railing, observing from here a full view of the Pacific Ocean, its far-reaching blue waters glittering in the sun.  He heard a constant noise of surging and roaring below. Looking down over the railing, he saw a sheer cliff that dropped straight down far below to meet at the bottom, waves rolling and crashing onto rocks, creating boiling foam, spray and mist.  He tarried and mused here.  Shortly he turned and made his way over to a table farthest from the highway.  It was good here, having a full view of the ocean, and so he slipped the satchel from his shoulder onto the table’s concrete top.  He paused, made a restful sigh, then removed his hat, revealing his stringy grey hair, scratched his head, and with the back of his shirtsleeve wiped the grime from his forehead.

Then he searched about his satchel, removed some newspaper-wrapped sourdough bread and a tin cup.  With his handkerchief he wiped the inside of the cup clean, stepped  over to the water fountain,  filled it,  returned to his table, and began munching his bread with deep swallows of water.  With his deep-set eyes, he faced the highway, and watched the automobiles intermittently whiz by.

Where are they all going? he murmured in quiet reflection.  He chuckled, and then added, Where am I going?

Restful and content, he passed the time, watching the cars go by, and while so observed across from the highway upward, above the summit, the barren hillside, with its rocky slope and broken boulders, weathered, sun scorched and windblown.  Yet, most surprisingly, as he looked, he saw there in the midst of the boulders a stunted and deformed oak tree.  Its naked roots had reached down around the boulders and embedded themselves within the fractured rocks.  The constant beating of the coastal winds had swept its scraggly limbs back and bowed its trunk eastward.  The tree was alone.  Nothing else grew there, not even weeds.

What are you doing up there, old tree, murmured the old hobo, in all of those rocks?  You should be down in the valley with all of the other oak trees.  There your roots could suck at the rich, moist soil.  There you would be shielded from the wind, he said.  Ah, but we know don’t we, old tree.  ‘Tis better to fight the elements than to fight the multitudes…a contamination…lose your personality…yes, a rat race.  The old hobo chuckled with satisfaction.  He then took another mouthful of bread, chewing it with swallows of water, as he reflected in quiet solitude.

Shortly, the old man was distracted from his thoughts when a late model automobile with a family swerved onto the hardtop of the park and stopped.  Immediately, an adolescent boy jumped from the car, and in childish movements scampered about the park and soon ended up at the park’s overlook at the railing. He stuck his head between its metal bars and peered down to the ocean below, to see there the waves pounding the rocks, and the spray spewing high into the air.

Be careful, the woman of the family yelled over to the boy, as she stepped out of the car.  Don’t get too close. 

The man of the family then got out of the car, went around to its back, and opened the trunk.  For a moment, the woman stood tiptoed, stretching, taking in deep breaths of air, and then aware of her husband’s activity, followed him to the rear of the car.  She took the picnic basket that her husband