Sunlight Through A Window

By Joe Hilley

Sunlight Through A Window contains two short stories: "Hornwallace Korlinheiser" and "Nora Mae." The first, the story of a man, confined to an institution, who lives a life that exists only in his mind. The second, the story of neighbors who wrestle with their past and struggle to break free of its hold on the p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dunlavy Gray
• Release date: Sep 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986815619

Joe Hilley

Joe Hilley holds a Bachelor of Arts from Asbury College, a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Cumberland School of Law, Samford University. In 1999, he quit the practice of law to write. A lifelong observer of politics and social issues, Joe is the author of five critically-acclaimed novels, including Sober Justice, Double Take, Electric Beach, Night Rain, and The Deposition. He lives in Alabama where he spends his days writing and encouraging others to follow their dreams.

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Sunlight

Through

A Window

Joe Hilley

Dunlavy + Gray

Houston

Dunlavy + Gray ©2022 by Joe Hilley

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022945187

ISBN: 979-8-9868156-0-2

E-Book ISBN: 979-8-9868156-1-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations in books and critical reviews. For information, contact the publisher at [e-mail].

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

Table of Contents

Hornwallace Korlinheiser: A Short Story 1

Nora Mae: A Short Story 116

Hornwallace Korlinheiser

A Short Story

Sunlight shining through the window of the day room felt warm against my skin and I sat there, basking in its rays, all the while staring at my hand and wondering when I would move it again. Not that I couldn’t move it—I possessed all the physical capacity necessary to lift my hand from the table and do with it as I pleased. I wondered not if I could but rather when I would. Would it be now? Or now? Or would it be later?

And if I lifted my hand, what might prompt me to do so? Perhaps I might get hungry and decide to have a snack. Then I would lift it. Or, I might cease thinking of the topic altogether and simply stand to stretch. But as I stared at my hand, my thoughts moved beyond the obvious and beneath the external to focus on the unstated and understated internal. Perhaps I might, by some random act of my mind set in motion by causes and effects from long ago and imperceptible to me now, decide that a particular moment was the right one. Almost as a matter of happenstance. Perhaps. Or perhaps I might not. Perhaps I might—

Mr. Dornblat. A familiar voice interrupted my thoughts.

Having heard that voice many times, I recognized it immediately, but it always accompanied an unwelcome intrusion, as it did right then, so I ignored it and continued to focus on my hand and the question I posed to myself of when I might lift it from the tabletop. The proposition was an odd one, for certain. Intriguingly circular in nature, though—me forming the question for myself and waiting to be surprised by the answer I might provide. Only now, with the familiar voice calling to me, I found the suggestion of a new option to consider. Perhaps I might lift my hand from the table to slap the person who spoke, particularly one who referred to me by that infernal name.

Mr. Dornblat, the voice repeated, in spite of my choice to ignore it. Time to return to your room.

Mr. Dornblat…

For as long as I can remember, people have called me Mr. Dornblat, or some version of it—often simply Mister. When I was a boy, even my father’s friends called me Mr. Dornblat. Never Steven, which was the name my parents gave me when I was born. Just, Mr. Dornblat. And they looked intimidated when they said it, as if they knew something disturbing about me and approached me with suspicion. One or two of them even looked afraid. Especially Mr. Daniels … and that guy from the cabinet shop whom I could never stand to be around and whose name, consequently, I chose never to remember.

The reaction of my father’s friends was a curious thing for me. At once both troubling and mysterious, which only served to encourage my imagination and at a very young age I began fabricating stories in my mind to account for their awkwardness. Rather quickly, I convinced myself that I had been an axe-wielding toddler and had hacked my father to pieces—my biological father—and that the man they all knew as my father was merely a stand-in. A look-alike appointed by the authorities to cover for my missing father in order to preserve the illusion to society and themselves that my family and I were normal. That the situation was normal. That nothing untoward ever happened. Especially not with me. So as to preserve the even greater illusion that nothing awful ever involved children. Or the more preposterous myth that they—the adults—were normal, too. It was, after all, the 1950s. A time when everyone and everything was perfectly perfect.

Throughout my childhood, as I continued to fantasize about the nature of the responses I received from my father’s friends, my thoughts turned in a different direction and I came to imagine that Father—not being my actual father but the appointed stand-in who looked after me—must have done something terribly wrong and was being punished by being forced to live in close proximity to me, the axe-wielding toddler. And of course, I began to imagine what his transgressions might have been, which took my mind deeper and deeper into the convoluted morass that even then I knew lay at the bottom of my soul.

Imagining all of that was a sordid affair that took place solely within the confines of my mind and an endeavor to which I devoted enormous amounts of time and energy, but it could have been easily avoided if they had merely called me by my name. My proper name. The name my parents had given me at birth. But none of them did. Even my father called me Mister—Little Mister, he used to say when I was a child. Not Steven, or Steve, or even, Hey, you. I never understood why he and Mother went to the trouble of naming me, then never bothered to use the name.

After enduring the names everyone else gave me, and after noticing that my parents failed to use the name they had officially bestowed upon me, I decided to choose a name for myself, one that I liked, and after some thought settled upon the name Hornwallace Korlinheiser. By then I was in second grade and my classmates thought it was a stupid name. Several of them showed no hesitancy in telling me so to my face, but it was the name I liked and when they persisted in refusing to call me Steve, I became equally obstinate in demanding they call me Hornwallace.

For almost three weeks, I refused to answer the teacher when she addressed me as Steven—it was too late for that name. I had moved on. As a result of my obstinate attitude, I was sent to the principal’s office. An event that occurred every day. But I refused to address the principal, too, which he found amusing.

I refused to talk to my friends for the same reason and was the object of their ridicule, especially in the cafeteria where they threw things at me and called me all manner of names, many of them I could not even repeat to Mother, the one person to whom I could tell everything. And then, Benny Smith tried to eat carrots from my plate. Just once, though, because I doused him with a carton of milk. His parents were at work, which meant they couldn’t bring him fresh clothes and he was forced to wear a soured shirt the remainder of the day. I, on the other hand, received an afternoon at home with the housekeeper, free to do as I pleased.

The following day, Father accompanied me to the principal’s office and at last I explained the issue about my name, thinking he would help me rectify the situation. Still, it made no difference. No one ever called me Hornwallace and finally I relented and went in the opposite direction, responding to whatever name anyone used. To my surprise, they began calling me Mister, just like my father, which even now is the way I am known by those from earlier in my life who think they are my friends. In truth, I have very few friends. Only acquaintances. A long list of acquaintances. And all of them call me Mister. Everyone except the nurses and orderlies here at Broadmoor where I reside.

The man who spoke to me that day as I sat by the window staring at the back of my hand—the orderly behind the voice—thinks he is my friend, though he persists in calling me Mr. Dornblat, even after a thousand corrections. That’s why I call him Homer, though he tells me his name is something else. He doesn’t like Homer any more than I like Mr. Dornblat, which makes us even I suppose.

One thing about Homer that I do like is the pants he wears. They’re white, like all the other orderlies, but his are tailored nicely with the hem of the legs just touching the tops of his shoes and the seat of his pants fitting snugly across the cheeks of his butt. Not too tight but not baggy like all the other orderlies. He has a nicely rounded butt, too, and evenly proportioned on each side, though you can’t really say that to anyone. At least not from one man to another. Start talking to a straight man about a man’s butt and he’ll categorize you as gay, then he’ll never take you seriously about anything else you have to say. Ever. Which is interesting because that kind of prejudice contradicts many of the things they claim to believe. Like, when I was a child and my parents occasionally took me to church, I heard the preacher talk about how God made all things that exist and that all things God created are beautiful. But no one back then would have allowed us to say that a man’s butt was beautiful, though not all are, really.

Homer is handsome enough. And the preacher who occasionally visits me is handsome, too, but I can’t tell him that. Homer might not mind, but the preacher would think I’m gay. Not that it matters to me what the preacher thinks, or whether I really am gay, but with some people if they think you think you’re gay they’ll ignore everything else you say, same as if you’d said you were gay. So I don’t tell the preacher he has a handsome face, and I certainly don’t tell him he has a cute butt. Which makes sense because his butt is flat and not cute at all.

Most of the time when Homer returns me to my room, it’s for meals. When I first arrived at Broadmoor I ate meals with the others in the dining room but Morgan Jackson, an idiot who lived on the next hall, kept eating food from my plate. That, of course, brought back memories from my childhood and the anger that went with it. I did my best to remember that he wasn’t Benny Smith but finally I could stand it no more. When he reached for my plate the third time, I dumped his plate in his lap. He howled and cried and made a scene until the orderlies escorted him from the room.

That should have been the end of the matter but others who were seated at our table seized the moment as an opportunity to start a food fight, which they very much enjoyed until orderlies attempted to determine blame for the incident. They all pointed to me and said I started whole thing, which wasn’t true. I dumped Morgan’s plate in his lap, true enough, but did nothing more. The others, however, availed themselves of an opportunity for the kind of pleasure the idiots at Broadmoor enjoy.

After I explained the situation to Homer, he began to watch and soon after they allowed Morgan back in the dining room, Homer caught him in the act of eating my food but did nothing to stop him. A few days later, when Morgan began eating the carrots from my plate for the third time, I stabbed the back of his hand with my fork. Not a light poke either but a genuine stab that inserted the tines all the way in. Someone in the infirmary had to remove the fork with one of their instruments, which I understand required a great deal of effort. Thereafter, I received meals in my room, an arrangement I very much enjoyed. Eating alone was something I’d done since childhood and I found it to be a