Kissing Lucy Thai

the Smashwords edition

Kissing Lucy Thai

Short Stories by Bruce E. Weber

Bruce E. Weber

a Stanfield Books publication

Copyright ©2016 Bruce E. Weber

All rights reserved.

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Disclaimer

This is a fiction book. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is a coincidence.

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Formatting and Cover Design by Debora Lewis

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Table of Contents

Part 1: Occidental Tales

The Green Dragon

My name is Emile Bernard

Salute To The World

Fly Away

All That Glitters

Buckskin Horse

Kissing Lucy Thai

Bennett

Part 2: Oriental Tales

Blue Phantom

Ticket To Bangkok

The Bridge At Chiang Khong

It’s Not About The Money

Other books by Bruce E. Weber

About the Author

Part 1: Occidental Tales

The Green Dragon

I got the news on a manila postcard. It came from my sister Naomi, who lives in a cabin somewhere in northern New Mexico. The message was typed on her old Smith Corona. It read,

HE died Feb. 4, natural causes. HE left no will. House in Scarsdale coming down Feb. 15th if you want anything from it.

Hope you are well.

N.

That was Naomi–always brief and to the point. And there could only be one HE, meaning our father, the late great Max Baranov.

I sat real still for a minute after I read this. After all, no matter what your father was like, you had to mourn his passing. It took me about ninety seconds to do this, which was more time than he deserved, and the next thing that came to mind was, hell yes there was something in that house I wanted! It had still been there the year before when I’d gone back for Mama’s funeral, and I doubted anyone else knew anything about it.

I went out to my taxi with a tape measure, checked the width of the back seat and felt pretty sure it was wide enough. If it wasn’t, I’d have to rent a trailer. But this thing I wanted from our old house, if I was lucky, I might get rid of it back there in New York, maybe for enough cash to set up my girlfriend Jacinta for years to come.

I called the V I P Taxi office and told them I had personal business and wouldn’t be on call for a few days. They had no reason to gripe, since I always leased the cab by the month and paid in advance. When I told Jacinta I’d be gone for a few days, maybe longer, her eyes dribbled tears, because Jacinta believes that all goodbyes are forever. But I promised her I’d be back and I’d never broken a promise to her yet, so that put a smile on her dark round face.

It was about 2 A M when I left Tucson. Jacinta waved at me from the porch, holding that brass candlestick from her church in Mexico, with just a stub of a candle on it, its flame about to go out.

Three hours later when I crossed into New Mexico, I wondered if I should head north to that little town in the mountains where Naomi lived in a crumbling adobe, totally off the grid. I hadn’t seen her since Mama’s funeral. I was thinking I might never see her again–you just never know–but I couldn’t remember the name of the little town she lived in, and besides, she didn’t have a phone.

So I kept driving. I didn’t stop till I got to Abilene, where I crashed in a Motel 6. From there, I’d push straight across to New York. Problem is, I can’t push so hard these days.

Next morning, crossing the Texas Panhandle, I tried to keep my mind off the past. But for some reason, maybe the straightness of the road or maybe the loneliness, my mind spun like a movie projector, clicking back to the past and throwing up images that wouldn’t go away.

I’d had two brothers and a sister, Naomi who I mentioned, and we’d all spent our adult lives in reaction to HIM. The oldest was Ivan. After he got back from two tours in Viet Nam, he didn’t suffer from any of that emotional stuff that other guys had, because, like Ivan said, life with HIM was a lot worse than war. But a month after Ivan mustered out of the Marines, in the summer of 73, he left and we never heard from him again. He was my oldest brother, and I miss him every day.

Naomi, she finished up at Julliard, kissed Mama on the cheek one afternoon in June and joined a band of hippies, the one group on earth that HE hated even more than Germans. She wandered for years, till she nearly died giving birth to a stillborn baby, and since them she’s hidden away from the world, playing her flute and eating some special diet that wouldn’t sustain a rabbit.

Then there was Max Jr. He capitalized big-time on our insane home life. He made a literary career out of growing up with HIM for a father, doing exactly like that Pat Conroy guy did. Max had published three books, two made into movies, about what it was like to live with an abusive father. Now that Max the Great was burning in hell, I bet Max Jr.’s already halfway through another book on the same subject.

Then there was me, Charlie. I was the youngest, sort of a puny kid from day one, which HE took as a personal insult, so I was the one he liked to hammer on most. I was just crossing the east Texas border when I remembered, like it was yesterday, the day I realized that HE was nothing more than a big chicken-shit. I’d been found guilty of the ultimate transgression, disagreeing with HIM, and HE was about to sentence me to solitary, which was HIS favorite punishment, but I told HIM I wanted a beating instead. HE went and got his switch, a nasty green bamboo thing HE liked to slap his leg with, and HE started in on me. But no matter how hard HE struck, I stared at HIM with no expression, and from that day on HE left me alone. And from that day on, Mama left HIM alone too

This playback made me nauseous; the last thing I wanted was a pilgrimage to Scarsdale and a trip down memory lane. But if HE died without a full liquidation of his assets, this trip might be worth it. It wouldn’t help Naomi. She was lost to the world and there was nothing I could do to bring her back. Ivan had vanished. And Max Jr., he was too high up in the food chain to need my help. But my girl Jacinta–helping her could make this all worthwhile.

I was pretty tired by the time I passed through Indiana but I decided to hold off resting till I got to the Penn border. I snoozed a couple hours there and guessed I’d hit Manhattan by around 2 A M. Traffic would be light, so I’d get out to Scarsdale pretty quick. The thought of going back in that house gave me the shivers and I cranked up the heat.

Then halfway across Ohio I started worrying and couldn’t stop. This almost never happens anymore, but I kept getting this image of HIM looking at me, his pale dead face in its usual snarl, telling me to keep my hands off HIS property or HE’d haunt me till I died. I was scared because HE’d be just the type to manage such a thing, you can be sure of that.

These jitters kept me going non-stop except for gas and urination. I crossed into Manhattan, the place still hopping two hours after midnight, then drove north to Westchester County.

I felt a sting in my heart as I got near the old neighborhood. A lot had changed since my day. Scarsdale used to be a mixed bag, and its people worked all kinds of jobs. We lived there because old Max believed the people in Scarsdale hated Jews, and Max loved to be hated. That was odd, because we were about the most un-Jewish family you could ever find. I think old Max held on to the Jewish bit because it gave him a reason to feel persecuted. And being a professional gambler who made more money than most of his neighbors gave him even more of a kick from thumbing his nose at them. But my old Scarsdale’s pretty much gone. Now it’s mainly doctors, lawyers and Wall Street people, and the average house costs one-point-five mil. That’s why our crumbling old Victorian was coming down. That and the termite damage that HE refused to get treated.

When I got to the house I stopped in the street in front. I knew that if I sat there too long I’d lose my nerve, so I drove on up and parked under the portico. It was the middle of the night but cabs get away with being places at all hours, so I didn’t worry about arousing suspicion. I got my flashlight and went around to the back. I walked up the rotten back-porch steps, ran my fingers across the top of the door casing, found the rusty skeleton key, and let myself in.

God, it smelled exactly the same! A little mustier maybe, but just as dark and closed in, because we always had to keep the place shut up and quiet so HE could sleep all day.

I stepped through the kitchen and into the cave-like hall that opened to the big entryway. It was really dark in there, just a few streaks coming in through the stained glass, but I could tell nothing had changed. Same blackened woodwork, dingy soot-streaked walls, creaky brown wood floors, and that long, straight stairway. The ceilings in that creepy old place were almost twelve feet high, and the stairs ran all the way up in one stretch. My brother Ivan wanted to slide down the rail when he was a kid, so he sawed off the newel post on one side and slid down, but he couldn’t stop and flew head-first into the stained-glass front door. He spent a week in solitary for that.

I stood there looking at those stairs, not wanting to go up, but I took the first step and my feet, like they had a memory of their own, kept climbing. I felt a little winded at the top. The heavy velvet curtains shut out the city light, but it was always dim there, even at noon, because of the sooty stained-glass windows. All the big pots Mama had hauled up there in her attempt to grow plants in the half-light were still there, but there were no plants in them anymore, just a pale grit that looked more like ashes than dirt

This was the part I was dreading the most, so I hurried down the long hall to the far end of the house, to the main bedroom. I stopped a few feet from the door. A flood of red memories swept through me. I wanted to get out, but right then I thought of Jacinta, of her standing there on the porch with that little stub of candle, waving goodbye, sure she’d never see me again. So I sucked it