Coney Eyes

By Paul Levine

From “Some Doo Wops And Those Rama Langa Ding Dongs”
It was the 50s. Doo Wops fell from the sky, and we didn’t even notice that they lit our path, yet made no sense, but instead, merely soothed the painful edges and left us with the confusion of the 60s and the life beyond yet to come.
From “How Many Times Are You Going To Get Married”
After my second divorce, my mother asked me, “How many times are you going to get married?” I didn’t feel she was being sarcastic and so my response, “As many times as it takes,” wasn’t really called for.
From “Coe and Larry”
Coe sat at the kitchen table one morning staring at the back of the cereal box and turned up the volume of the new all-prayer radio station. She had been listing for two hours, waiting for something that would make it better.

Ranging from coming of age and the difficulties of relationships, the stories in Coney Eyes are about the challenges of life, love, change, and becoming older.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663260901

Paul Levine

The author of twenty-two novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote twenty episodes of the CBS military drama JAG and co-created the Supreme Court drama First Monday starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The international bestseller, To Speak for the Dead, was his first novel and introduced readers to linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter. Bum Rap was an Amazon Number One Bestseller. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed Solomon vs. Lord series of legal capers. His latest book is Cheater's Game, which digs deep into the college admissions scandal. He divides his time between Santa Barbara and Miami. For more information, visit his website at paul-levine.com or his Amazon Author Page at amazon.com/Paul-Levine/e/B000APPYKG/ or follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/PaulLevineAuthorPage/ or on Twitter @Jake_Lassiter

Book preview

CONEY EYES

Copyright © 2024 Paul Levine.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

844-349-9409

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6089-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-6090-1 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 03/12/2024

Reminders first appeared in the Kansas Quarterly, Volume 22, Numbers 1-2 Winter/Spring 1990.

Scrapbook first appeared in Permafrost, Volume 13, No. 2 Spring-Summer 1991.

I’m Registered With The State first appeared in The Writers Post Journal, September 2006.

CONTENTS

Coney Eyes

Night Trains

Moving

Big Bad Blueberries

Wilcox

Reminders

I Could Have Had The Badge

Scrapbook

Some Doo Wops And Those Rama Langa Ding Dongs

What Will You Do Now?

I’m Registered With The State

My Friend At Work

Amique Who Visits

Ladies In The Sand

The Marathon Runners

The Water Should Be Right

Free At Last

Fredericks Is Better Now, He Thinks

My Writers Group Picnic

The Concert

Coe And Larry

Life Insurance

The Early Malls And Map Making Of Jacob Blauerstein

Having Texas

Walking Away Is A Different Matter

How Many Times Are You Going To Get Married

Gated In Florida

Like A Set Design

Hip

If My Father Had A White Beard

Grave Sitting

Coloring The Time

She Looked So Hopeful

It’s Not About The Math

Put It In Writing

Like Robert

The Day Jimmy Buffett Died

Puzzle

CONEY EYES

The last remains of Harry Silver (Heart Attack),

wind swept across Coney Island Beach,

streak the damp, March sand.

Harry’s tinseled memory almost touches (but not quite)

the ashes of his partner, Samuel T. Gold (suicide),

whose death-dust sparkles in a lifeless sun.

Samuel is whipped around every so often by an onshore

breeze that scuttle-bugs the shoreline and scatters Sam amongst the winter’s rusted cans, decayed watermelon rinds, and those occasional water-logged reminders of love nights.

Harry and Sam,

Silver and Gold,

died the same day,

after an argument, it is said.

Partners for thirty-two years in that store that sold

remnants and later, Eagles and Petrocelli’s.

Sam’s suicide, it is rumored on the boardwalk,

was not from that argument that concerned itself with expansion,

but from his wife, who is said to have been in bed with a different man most nights.

Even though, in all fairness to her, Sam offered little after the receipts were tallied.

And Sadie Silver—

Old Sadie Silver,

talked about by Harry’s family for having married the stock boy (not even waiting three months).

Now a year after that union,

whose marriage beds are bridged by a marble table,

only crossed from the debit to the credit side only once a week.

Yet that stockboy owner, whose tattooed arms bring a new customer following, surprises Sadie Silver on her 65th with a coupon for a tattoo. That makes her laugh a new type of laugh when it becomes the image of a kiss on her thigh.

And the stock boy-owner and Sadie walk hand in hand by Astroland and Wonder Wheel, and he tries to knock down those stuffed monkeys with the hard balls he throws.

As Sadie watches,

wetting her red lips with her tongue,

while nervously touching one wrinkled hand to the other.

NIGHT TRAINS

Don’t you think you’re too old for a train trip that long? Mary asks.

I am talking to her about the Zepher that goes from Chicago to San Francisco. I am telling her that everyone around us is getting sick and no one knows what’s going to happen next. That I could be on chemotherapy or have a stroke like two of the people that live on our block, and if I don’t do it now, it will never happen, and that even though I limp and even though I use a cane, just seeing the scenery pass by will do me wonders. I tell her that it’s something I feel inside.

I am looking at the timetable of the Zepher while sitting in the doctor’s office and I’m thinking about that poem about raging against the dying of the light. And I am thinking that I have become muted by too many pills and have become a whimper of sadness. That my hope is becoming petrified. That I am almost no more.

I am sitting in my den when the house is dark and Mary has gone to sleep, and I am thinking of trains in the night. The darkness of passing towns. I am thinking of the movement and the sound of the tracks not knowing what will be passed, not caring what the next stop is. But mostly, I am thinking about what I will do next.

MOVING

In a college speech class, I once had to give an extemporaneous three-minute talk on the topic of moving. I was called to the front of the class, and the professor, sitting in the back of the room, merely said, Your topic is moving.

I spent my first thirty seconds or so just looking out at my classmates, feeling my face redden. I was trying to think of anything to say. I was hoping I would not begin to sweat. The passing seconds increasing my anxiety. Until finally, I spoke about moving along through college and how difficult it was, and then I mentioned some of the courses I had taken.

It was quite a substandard speech.

At the end, I had to stand there while the teacher gave some feedback, he called it, to improve for the next time. He read from the notes he had been taking as I had spoken. Too many pauses. You have to watch the pauses. Try to plan out what you will say as you go along, and don’t be intimidated when you are talking. You also need to choose something from the beginning and go with it. You wasted too much time. Anyway, you’ll get four more chances this semester, and as I have said, I drop the lowest grade. See me after class and I will tell you your grade.

It was many years after college that I thought back to that speech and realized I had never moved when I had given that talk. But now I could have given a much better speech.

Now I would have faced the class and I would have said—

My furniture was once put in storage. My favorite was the chair.

I once had two apartments. One for if it did work out with her. One for if it didn’t.

I once saw my parents go.

I’ve been to twenty-three funerals. I once saw a casket opened. Gray. Ash. White satin.

I once had blood taken from my arm.

Boxes of books are the heaviest.

My sister’s table was from Jamaica.

She died of leukemia. Leukemia eats the blood. And makes you rest.

I’ve often wondered how far and how long.

I once got three estimates.

And almost bought a house.

And moved to the city instead.

I cleared out the closet.

Brushed the floor.

Put her remaining things in some boxes.

Cleaned hair from the sink.

Scrubbed the tiles.

Turned off the water one more time.

Took one last look.

And left.

BIG BAD BLUEBERRIES

There are certain teachers who stand out. Mrs. Oxman, our ninth-grade English teacher, was one such person. She was always soft spoken and handled disturbances without raising her voice or getting angry. But her lesson on alliteration and the scene with Jeff Scagg and his father is what we talk about at class reunions.

Jeff Scagg, a student who had enrolled in the school late that year, would use curse words as adjectives. Jeff was sent to the principal’s office more than any other student, and try as he would, he could not stop his natural flow of words that came out in the playground or classroom. I don’t even think he did it to get a response or to be defiant, as much as he just couldn’t help himself.

Two weeks before the final exam, Mrs. Oxman was going around the room asking students to answer questions about the major topics of the year. When she got to Jeff, she asked him to describe the difference in a story between the first person and third person as the narrator.

His response, The first person is saying the fucking story by yourself, is what got Jeff’s father to be called to the school, though. And it was here that we first learned where Jeff had become a master at the use of curse words. For upon opening the door to our English class, Mr. Scagg interrupted Mrs. Oxman’s talk on alliteration by pointing at Jeff and saying, Hey, fuck, get over here. We all fell silent, and Mrs. Oxman dropped her chalk when Mr. Scagg then went over to his son’s seat, and looking down said, And I mean right fucking now.

After Jeff left the classroom with his father and the door was closed, Mrs. Oxman chose to deal with the situation by attempting to ignore the interruption. Smiling at us, she turned to the blackboard and wrote, falling French fries, carting covered coats, and sliding silver skis as examples of alliteration.

But we were more intent on overhearing Mr. Scagg say, I’m going to cream you, you son of a bitch. I don’t want to get no fucking principal calling me at work to pick your ass up because of your filthy mouth. You’re in God damned school, you asshole, you filthy, fuckin’, freak.

We all knew that Mr. Scagg had done a far better job in teaching us the real meaning of alliteration, as we called each other filthy, fuckin’ freaks in the playground after school. And I am sure, as any English teacher would attest, Mr. Scagg’s version was far more impactful than Mrs. Oxman’s one last try that day­­— the big, blond boy was baking beautiful blueberries.

WILCOX

At night, Wilcox pretends. He takes the small table lamp in his hand and walks from one side of the room to the other. He stops in front of the couch, and using the lamp as a microphone, bends over the brown cushions and sings the songs of Frank Sinatra. Dawn calls it crooning. He laughs at her old word while saying, And you’re only twenty-three.

Wilcox decides to grow a beard. He looks in the mirror the first morning, and he wonders what his students will say. Why, at fifty-six, is there a need to change, he thinks. Can I attribute this transformation to a twenty-three-year-old. At my age is it pathetic or hopeful or is it just plain hanging on by my fingernails. Can any reader out there help me on this one?

I’ll have to get used to it, Dawn says. I liked your face smooth. But this makes you look more virile.

When are you going to shave, Professor? one of his students asks. The student that is asking has long, blond hair to his shoulders yet doesn’t crack a smile.

Wilcox doesn’t like personal questions from students but decides to treat the question as not having ill intent, as not having any value or degree of antagonism to it, and so he says, We’ll see.

Wilcox thinks of the wide brimmed hat Dawn wore when they went to Brill’s wedding.

Maybe the right one, finally, Brill had said. Maybe there’s some life in you yet, and I’ll have to take you more seriously. I clearly underestimated you. Look at her. You still got it going, Wilcox. There’s a lot in you we need to look up to. Where is all this coming from?

Wilcox looks at the rows and rows of students and begins his lecture. Dawn has asked to sit in the class so she can pick up hints on ways to improve her first teaching assistantship. Dawn is in the first row. Her legs are crossed. Her skirt rides up. Wilcox looks toward the back of the room. But all he sees are Dawn’s thighs.

He hears himself, though, being able to discuss the characters in Canary Row like he’s doing two things at once, but the thighs are winning and winning big. They are still there when he glares at his notes and are there when he writes on the board.

He looks in the mirror at night. Too much fat, he thinks. My middle is like the ring of Saturn. An inner tube, the kind we used to use in the summer. Who can get into a woman’s head? Who can really know why someone will be