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    The Sunrise 2000
    The Sunrise 2000
    The Sunrise 2000
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    The Sunrise 2000

    By M.L. Strickland

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    These eight stories follow a single mother and her friends and lovers through the turbulent 1970's, as they struggle to survive and find meaning in their lives and times. From the idle speculations of a pot-filled afternoon at the local hangout on the West Coast of Florida to a young man's strange brush with fate, to the bitter consequences of a wrong turn in the road, life's lessons are encountered and evaluated and, ultimately, lead to a path of wisdom. While this is a work of fiction, it is also a documentary, of sorts, an eye-witness account of daily life in a half-forgotten time which was not so long ago. While each story can be read as a complete unit, the work progresses through time, providing the depth of a novel when stories are read sequentially.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM.L. Strickland
    Release dateNov 20, 2012
    ISBN9781301222483
    The Sunrise 2000
    Author

    M.L. Strickland

    I was born in Cleveland and grew up in Canton, Ohio. I attended college, married and gave birth to two sons in New York City in the 1960's. Divorced and remarried, I moved to Florida in the 70's, where I enjoyed living near the water and had many adventures. My daughter was born in 1987, and I received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg in 1998. Since then, I have been writing, editing, and having more adventures.

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      Book preview

      The Sunrise 2000 - M.L. Strickland

      THE SUNRISE 2000

      By M.L. Strickland

      Copyright 2011

      Contents

      The Sunrise—1975

      Our Part in the Revolution

      Down by the Bay

      How to Make an Impression

      Enter and Be Loved

      A Question of Space

      Turning the Wheel

      The Sunrise—2000

      The Sunrise—1975

      We were not around when dry land began to appear on earth, or when a certain fish first sprouted legs, hopped on the earth and somehow gulped a breath of air. What made that creature so different from the others, those with progeny still populating our seas, those which today still gasp and die when pulled from the water? No one can be sure, and it is just as well for us not to have been there, as many must have flopped ashore and died before the necessary adaptations could occur.

      The Sixties in America was a time of change for some, a time of experimentation, of great passion and sometimes early death. Lanni did not see herself as a fish out of water, nothing quite so dramatic, but like many who had witnessed those times and still somehow made the leap to the Seventies, she carried with her a deep perception of loss as well as a feeling that every encounter remade her world anew.

      Lanni sat at a picnic table outside The Sunrise Tavern and removed the elastic that held the ponytail in her hair, which was long and dark. It formed frizzy curls around her face and, unrestrained, flew out around her shoulders like a witchy waterfall.

      That’s better, she said.

      I swear, said Sheri, no one can follow a train of thought anymore. It's a natural wonder if a conversation lasts over ten minutes on any one subject. She sat, or rather composed herself, upon the table, her legs crossed at the knees and extending to the edge of the painted wooden planks. The ardent voice of Janis singing Bobbie McGee trickled out from the jukebox inside the bar and lingered over the table for a moment before dissolving in the afternoon breeze.

      Crazy Jim gave a moment's thought to what might have precipitated Sheri's comment, but came up with nothing. From his vantage point, seated on one of the benches that flanked the table, he contemplated her well-tanned legs with a gaze that was both tentative and proprietary. She had breezed into his life, showering him with those gifts so clearly implied in the luscious curves of her long, slender frame, but he wondered, just now, where those legs might lead him. The expense, in terms of physical and mental effort, might prove beyond his means. Jim had retired early, not to mention wisely, from an adolescent career in bank robbery. Following two years in federal prison, he had taken up commercial fishing, 'for his health' as he liked to say.

      Lanni, who sat across the table, passed a doobie to Jim with a testimonial cough. It was excellent weed, a benefit of Jim's latest shrimping expedition to the Dry Tortugas. Clearly, she thought, Jim had no aptitude for crime. She sometimes wondered who had talked him into participating in such a heinous act, but she never got around to asking him. She was glad he had found a livelihood in fishing--it suited his personality.

      Well, she offered, drawing from her memory of a magazine article she’d thumbed through at the library, some scientists have said that we can only think of five things at one time. So if a sixth thought popped into our heads, she concluded, it would have to knock out something else.

      Okay, maybe that's true. I never really counted…, Sheri wrinkled her nose. But, I mean, shit, it's no wonder there’s so little understanding in the world. We never stay on a subject long enough to think it through.

      Sheri gave her head a backward toss, flinging eleven inches of tawny, sun-bleached hair behind her. She had once worked as a counselor for troubled youth. It had taken a little over a year for her to conclude that the clients were saner than her employers. One day, she'd filled a backpack with essentials and taken off hitchhiking. With no particular destination in mind, she'd panhandled her way around Mexico and the Southwest before wending her way to Florida. People are always asking questions and never waiting for an answer, she observed.

      Like someone at work who walks by and asks how you're doing without stopping to listen. Lanni reflected on her various office jobs, in and out of the printing business.

      Well, sure, but are those real conversations, anyhow? Some stuff is said just to fill up space. Suppose we were to take up a question and not just drop it when something else popped into our heads? You think we could do it?

      In his effort to follow the conversation, Jim had failed to attend to the doobie, which burned short between his fingers until a seed burst, stinging like a bee. His hand flew up, dropping the stub. It fell on his thigh, just beyond the fringe of his cutoff jean shorts, setting fire to a couple of leg hairs before he could brush it into the dust beneath the table.

      Chingada peta! he blurted, jumping to his feet. His voyages on the waters south of Florida had improved his vocabulary, so that he knew the salient idioms of at least three languages. Sorry--sorry about that, he continued, rubbing his leg. Okay, I'm better now… but, well, we went to the moon, didn't we? There's light bulbs and medicine and toilets that flush--I'd call that progress.

      Sheri replied without hesitation. Oh, sure--humans are great at all that, but think about it. We have all these comforts that didn't exist a hundred years ago, but are we really better or happier? They couldn't watch the news on TV or fly to China back then, so their world was really much smaller, but they probably got to know their friends and neighbors better than we do.

      Oh well, Jim gulped, I guess they wouldn't have missed any of our stuff since it hadn't been thought of yet.

      Bet they thought they were the pinnacle of civilization, same as we do, added the long-legged one.

      It was mid-afternoon, and a warm day for January. The shaggy hedges that gave privacy to the patio at The Sunrise also blocked out some of the sea breeze from the bay, which lay directly to the east, but giant pin oaks provided shade and gave the little area a bit of mystery. Mac, the bartender, had long since cleared away the remains of their lunch and refilled their glasses. As no one else was likely to come out to the patio until dinner hour, the threesome would be undisturbed.

      And a strange trio they made: Sheri, the renegade psychologist, Jim, the reformed bandito, and Lanni, the bookworm gone wild. Well, not entirely wild. The tie-dyed single mom might waste an occasional afternoon at The Sunrise, but come suppertime, she'd be home cooking for the kids. Ricky, the younger of the two boys, had started kindergarten that September. Robby was two years older. Lanni had taken up motherhood early, only to learn that marriage was not the storybook ending to her tale. She'd tried to avoid her old man's anger by acting with a subservience unnatural to her temperament, but when he smacked their toddler out of his chair, she’d fled to Florida with the boys.

      You're not the first to think that, Lanni declared. The Indian yogis believed that civilization is in decline--falling farther and farther from reality.

      I've read that somewhere, Sheri mused, 'Age of Iron,' or something.

      That's right! Lanni continued, I've read how they practiced yoga to free themselves from illusion.

      Yoga-- Jim interjected, --I've heard of that.

      Back in high school, Lanni had become fascinated with a book of Hindu Scriptures she'd picked up at a used book store. She doubted that the practices described therein had much to do with the yoga Jim had heard of. But then, she'd never been to a yoga class, so she couldn't exactly argue the point. I wonder if anyone still thinks like that?

      Maybe a few do, replied Sheri. Mostly, I’d say, people are too lazy--that's why they invented the gods to take over the responsibility.

      Invented the gods? Jim let the thought roll around his head as his fingers rolled another joint. Makes sense, he conceded, lighting up and inhaling deeply before passing the glowing weed to Sheri, …but wasn't there a real God too?

      Wasn't--isn't? Good question, replied Lanni. Maybe when there got to be so many conflicting gods that no one could believe in any of them, they had to invent a god that was bigger and better. Or maybe…

      Now you're talking! Sheri exclaimed. Personally, I can't believe in any god who would have allowed the Holocaust, or Vietnam for that matter.

      The mention of 'Nam still tore at Lanni's heart. She did not dare let the memory rise to the surface, although it had been seven years since her brother Rick had returned home in a flag-draped coffin. Rick, who'd taught her to ride a bike... What about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials? she demanded, partly to

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