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By Keith Corneau

What is next? Answering that question everyday will keep you young. This volume of fictional short stories explores the possibilities ahead and the outcomes for a host of characters in contemporary life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Keith Corneau
• Release date: Nov 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223121480

Keith Corneau

Keith Corneau writes fiction with a focus on contemporary characters.

Book preview

Next

Six-fifteen in the morning. The sun will soon rise anew as it has for billions of years. My wife, Annie, snores like a foghorn in between the ticks of the old alarm clock she sets for seven-thirty. Duke, the dog, is my alarm, scratching at the door to go out, but I’m lying here in the growing light looking up at the ceiling. Right outside the window, the birds are sounding off before leaving for another foray in their universe. They may be heading south today. Except for a loud one who stays behind, chirping nonstop until the first ray of sunshine breaks over the horizon. I’m not complaining. The sounds are unique. I’ve been on this earth for seventy-six years, and my obit hasn’t been in the newspaper yet, unlike so many of my family members and good friends who are not here anymore. Heart attacks and strokes, cancer, kidney failure, falls, slow fade aways, and Lou Gehrig’s disease. Where are they now? Annie asks me from time to time if I am going to write my obituary. No.

The silence outside the window is the cue to slowly roll out of bed and lead Duke down the creaking stairs to let him out the back door to do his business before breakfast. Lately, I have been looking back and retracing steps, something I don’t like doing because I was taught to always look ahead. Memories have their place, but the big question in living each day is, What’s next? Repeating that question and acting on it will keep you young. From my earliest memories, that’s how it’s always been: The next pitch in a Little League baseball game, time to mow the lawn, a test in algebra, the house-to-house deliveries of newspapers on a Sunday morning, a date for a high school dance with a wondrous girl in saddle shoes named Annie who became my wife, the college entrance exam, graduation day, the first day at college, and starting work as a financial analyst at JJ Ridgefield and Company. Then it was the next project review for our commercial and industrial clients, the next training level for a management position, the births of our four children, parenting, school and college graduations, several moves to new cities for executive positions in commercial finance, and then retirement at the age of seventy-two. That’s how I lived all through the years. Now, Annie and I live in a nineteenth-century brick farmhouse on a quiet road lined with the stone fences built by pioneering farmers over one hundred fifty years ago. Our kids and their families are gone, off on their own in the distant places of Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami. What’s next for me early this morning is breakfast, routine exercise, and some woodworking in the shop before we leave for church.

Duke bolts out the door into the November chill to relieve himself somewhere in the wilds of our twelve acres before sprinting back for breakfast. He deals very well with the borders of freedom  invisibly etched out there. It’s called dog food! Annie left a special edition magazine for seniors on the kitchen table. The retired couple pictured on the cover beam golden years smiles while gazing at something far off in the distance. What are they looking at? What is this glossy advertising pitch about golden years? Golden years food, golden years cruises, walk-in hot tubs, savings tips for the golden years, cars for golden years. It’s not all glossy in the fourth quarter of life. You’ll know it when you get here, because we’re also talking about the years with large print books, artificial hips and knees, hearing aids, pill trays with slots for every day of the week, walking canes and jumbo-sized calculators paired with Coke bottle bifocals. The golden  age of co-pays. The advice to shake it off takes a while to work now. But thinking golden has its place in any time of life. I struck gold many times, discovering it in the happiness of a great family, challenging work, and now the quiet times and freedom we enjoy every day on the ranch. The saddlebags are full.

Breakfast at six thirty a.m. While Duke chomps away at the food in his dish and Annie sleeps, I start in on the bran cereal doused with fat-free milk and loaded with slices of banana. It’s not the bacon and eggs with home fries of yesteryear, but it works with two cups of decaffeinated coffee followed by a half glass of prune juice and a full glass of water. The alphabetical lineup of vitamins and supplements kept on the kitchen counter top it all off. Good hitters make adjustments. It’s as true today as it was all those years ago when I learned to play the very difficult game of baseball in Little League. Stay in the batter’s box.

Duke walks slowly over to the kitchen table, licking his chops, looking up at me for a handout, and pitching his woe-is-me act that there wasn’t enough food in the bowl. Even though he knows very well the house rule: no handouts off the table. But he waits for my answer anyway. He sits patiently, trying to close the long shot deal, licking and smacking his lips while reading my movements and facial expressions. It does not hurt to ask. It’s a joke we’ve shared for nearly five years, since the day he appeared in our driveway, wobbly and underfed, looking like a runaway from a bankrupt circus searching for a home. It was the luckiest turn he ever took. He is Duke, a survivor of the deadly distemper that Doc Wilshire caught just in time. I remember Doc’s words when he called me on the phone that night to say that the weary dog had a unique spirit and was going to make it. Duke watches intently as I slowly shake my head, denying his request for a handout like a disinterested bureaucrat. He stands up and frowns, takes a few backsteps, and slowly walks away to settle down on the rug in front of the living room fireplace. But Duke never stops trying. That’s what a dog can teach you.

The 4th Street Cafe

The 4th Street Café is my bacon. My whole being goes into the business, and I’m very proud of its success. My family counts on me, and I bank on the success of the cafe. Life is finally at a point where it’s going smoothly after some early years of frustration and struggle. My wife, Diane, has a good job as a school nurse, and our two young daughters, Judy and Catherine, are growing up healthy and doing well in the South Highlands School District.

Starting up and running a small business is not easy. If you don’t think so, try it some time. When I left my desk job with the city codes department several years ago to open the cafe in midtown, I gambled big with the savings account and a second mortgage on our house in South Highlands. After six years in the nine-to-five lifestyle, commuting in the car day in and day out, I knew I had to move on. I realized at the age of twenty-nine that my earlier preoccupation with a job for life, one that included a top-shelf health care plan and a guaranteed pension after thirty years of service, was short-circuiting my ambitions. I was ready to take the risk.

Fortunately, Diane supported my move, one that would be hard to pull off today with all the glitz development and skyrocketing rents in the city. Small business owners find it hard to survive when savvy real estate investors move in and transform a neighborhood. But, it’s the city. You have to accept change and deal with it if you want to do business here. As it turned out, my reading of the locale as a location for the business was right on the money. I bought a narrow storefront building on 4th Street to house the cafe, and now there are new apartments and condos, offices, and boutique store fronts on the neighborhood’s avenues and narrow streets. I have six well-paid and loyal employees working the counter and the twelve tables from six in the morning until two in the afternoon. Monday through Friday, the business executives, civil servants, teachers, secretaries, students and cops in blue walk through the door with money to spend on custom coffee blends and the fast breakfast and lunch fare. We work hard to keep our customers satisfied.

There are, of course, constant challenges in managing the business day-to-day and turning a decent profit. Most of the problems are quickly solved with experience and common sense. But I once faced a serious quandary you will not find in any business textbook. The problems began when a new establishment called the Exquisite Massage Emporium opened around the corner