Americana: Stories

By Bill Hemmig

The many faces of curiosity. Which one do you see?

Welcome to Bill Hemmig's Americana, a collection of snapshots that capture the everyday American experience. From filling the bird feeder to a realtor conference (behind) the happiest place on Earth to the picturesque canals of Venice, each story celebrates the eccentricit

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Furiously
• Release date: Dec 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960869098

Book preview

Copyright

Copyright 2023 Bill Hemmig

All rights reserved.

Published by Read Furiously. First Edition - Trenton, NJ.

LCCN: 2022946350

Short Stories

Flash Fiction

American Fiction

Absurdist Fiction

In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1979, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher or creator is forbidden.

For more information on Americana: Stories or Read Furiously, please visit readfuriously.com. For inquiries, please contact

[e-mail].

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Brake Pads and Every Takeoff were originally published in Children, Churches and Daddies (cc&d). Getting Out was originally published in The Madison Review. Head On was originally published in Philadelphia Stories.

Edited by Samantha Atzeni

Cover layout by Adam Wilson

Definitions

Read (v): The act of interpreting and understanding the written word.

Furiously (adv): To engage in an activity with passion and excitement.

Read Often. Read Well.

Read Furiously

Dedication

1

Behind Disneyland

The Hilton Anaheim Hotel is adjacent to the Convention Center, fronting one long side of a pedestrian boulevard that is stately and luxuriant with soaring mature palm trees and, to slow the gait, serpentine paving which, after dark, smolders with submerged lighting of violet and indigo. The hotel’s crisp, modern façade is white marble to the height of the palms and above them broad bands of dark glass reflect the southern California sky. Stark white pillars mirror the rhythm of the palms and lead one into the glowing, recessed and nearly secret entryway. The suddenly cavernous lobby escapes impersonality with its handsome, amber-lit bar at its heart, intimate, conversation-encouraging furniture groupings throughout, and with its every surface bathed in pale gold so that even the quickest passer-through feels offered a warm embrace.

Jennifer Hurley is checking in for four nights to attend the annual conference of the American Association of Realtors. She conducts her business at the registration desk (placed as to seem almost an afterthought in the design of the lobby and yet, when found, welcoming and capable) and then she’s helpfully pointed in the direction of the elevators. She’s been here several times in the past twenty years for the same conference, but she’s stayed in lots of hotels over the years and major hotels are all too similar for anyone to remember their idiosyncrasies; in this case the four banks of elevators are isolated behind the bar, so that the visitor is invited to experience the complete lobby in order to reach them, creating a sense of entitlement satisfied.

Her room is on the ninth floor. All basic rooms in good hotels have essentially the same features, so after Jennifer lets herself in she parks her wheeled carry-on, deposits her laptop case, steps out of her shoes and walks straight to the one thing that always varies: the view. Hotels never reserve the best blocks of rooms for conventioneers because of the discounted rates, and so Jennifer is never optimistic of finding herself in a room with an impressive view. This one, a happy surprise, actually terminates distantly in mountains and sky. She must be at the back of the central part of the hotel. The swimming pool is directly below her, entertaining a group of pale middle-aged women and a family with two preschoolers. Behind the pool is a lower wing of the hotel that must house a ballroom or meeting rooms. Beyond that is a vast, featureless—no, generous—parking lot, and spread beyond that what looks to Jennifer to be…Well, she muses, this is fated to inspire comments.

The room itself is the usual size, handsome enough, golds and umbers, and has the two queen beds that she requested, one for sleeping and one for indulging in her favorite thing about travel, the ability to lay out clothing without getting dog hair all over it. The first wisecrack is longer in coming than she expected.

Anaheim! Portia whines. "Again? Merda. This is your idea of a celebration?"

Jennifer chooses to remain silent for the moment, which usually encourages Portia to expand on her amusing complaints, but Liz jumps in. Four days in southern California in November. No bitching from you, sister.

Anyway, Clarissa adds, always the glass half full, the four of us are together. That’s the celebration.

Portia’s eyes roll. This is truly an occasion for celebrating as she just three days ago was elected by a landslide to her fifth term as Governor of Massachusetts. She happened one day, in the library of the Doge, to pick up a book about the Massachusetts Puritans and, deciding that Americans were much more greatly in need of fixing than the Venetians, packed up her husband Bassanio and emigrated to Boston, where she involved herself in the issue of school reform and rapidly discovered that Bostonians were pushovers for straight talk and any kind of European accent. This led to the pursuit of public office. By the mid-nineties she made it as far as the state senate when the legislature, with no encouragement from her whatsoever, pushed through a constitutional amendment allowing naturalized immigrants to run for governor.

The rest was legend. The economy boomed, equality flourished, discrimination disintegrated, wealth was happily shared and everyone’s children cleaned up their rooms every day without complaint. Massachusetts became a model for the nation. And it was at no urging of Portia whatsoever that another constitutional amendment was unanimously approved allowing governors to run for unlimited terms. Jennifer must admit that some pomp and circumstance is in order.

Very sorry, Portia, she says. I don’t control the conference venues. We’ll have to make the best of Anaheim.

Well, Portia sniffs, turning her attention toward the windows, I don’t know why they couldn’t have thought it through and held the AAR in, say, New Orleans this year. That would have provided a properly festive backdrop, as opposed to… She stares. "Is that in all seriousness the back of Disneyland?"

Jennifer reviews the middle distance, dominated by a huge construction of open framing topped with several large and flat random shapes. The back of the Cars Land ride? Who knew, she says. We never had a room on this side of the hotel before.

Clarissa, farthest from the window and nearsighted, takes out her eyeglasses. I didn’t know Disneyland had a back.

I guess it would have to, says Liz. Freaky. It looks like… She turns to Jennifer. How would you describe it?

Clarissa and Portia also turn their attentions to Jennifer. The girls find her habit of translating every observation into realtor-speak highly entertaining, and so it’s a perennially favored pastime when they travel together.

"Well, it’s…an exclusive look at the reverse workings of an entertainment juggernaut."

Welcome to La-La-Land, Liz observes with a half-smile.

Portia sighs. How drearily consumerist. Product placement gone berserk.

"A deconstruction of the sundry elements comprising the fleeting dreams of youth."

Sciocchezza, Portia sputters, smiling very much against her will.

"A playground for all ages to experience the joyful realization of innocent childhood fantasies."

Exactly, says Clarissa Dalloway. They are all suppressing giggles.

Fantasies, Portia argues in closing, programmed into childish minds without their knowledge by a profit-driven corporation. I’m in government, she adds. I know from such things.

As evidenced, Liz Darcy says, by your alleged lack of complicity in your own career. I’ve had to make a public grab for every last thing I ever wanted.

Just so, Portia concurs. Which is why I need at this moment, on the heels of my so recent victory, a complete break from all forms of backstage string-pulling. And that, she says, pointing