J. Edward Kruft
1. THE DISPATCHRain King
I woke to the sounds of rain on the shake roof, and a mingling of songs from August and Everything After repeating in my mind. It was beyond me why that album, and why now, but you know your crazy brother. Anyway, it made me think of you:
Cut up, Maria
Show me some of them Spanish dances…
I couldn’t get back to sleep because I was alternately too hot or too cold. Remember, Maria, when we were young and we both got feeted pajamas for Christmas and I hated them because there was no way to regulate the heat and you found Mom’s old sewing scissors and helped me cut off the feet and then you wore them on your hands? You called it “our great de-feet.” Gosh, how I loved you for that.
I imagine it’s starting to get pretty nice and warm down where you are, all that golden Cali sun to light your path? Happy for you. I’ll make it down one of these years, promise. Here as usual, it’s dark and damp. But it suits me. Nothing to make shadows, so nothing to be frightened of, right? You made shadow puppets on our wall as kids. The bat was your most realistic and the scariest, if only for the high-pitched squeal you managed to emit.
Was doing pretty good on my diet, but I’ve put back most of the weight. Those damned burritos.
How are Tommy and Vanessa? Tell them I say hi.
I think the rain stopped, or turned to mist. Maybe I can go for a walk. In any case, I don’t hear it just now and there’s a sliver of light coming through the seam of the blinds.
Also, I lied. There are shadows, Maria. I guess I never looked close enough. There are real shadows of me in Daddy’s old La-Z-Boy, and not from any golden Cali sun, but cast across the old green carpet where we used to sit to have Christmas, you and me, cast from that too precious lamp Aunt Veronica insisted was smuggled out of Seville. But after she died, and the lamp ended up here, what did we find? On the bottom, under years of cigarette stains and coffee spills: a sticker from fucking Montgomery Ward.
Remember, Maria?
Yeeeah…
Remember? We sure got a kick out of it.
2. BUREAU INVENTORY“Philip Roth: The Biography” by Blake Bailey
Leather Filofax, circa 1995, still in daily use
Student pilot manuals
Water bottle
Extra glasses
Mini legal pad and stainless steel Waterman rollerball pen
Laptop
“For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn,” an original print by Lesley C. Weston created for story of the same name, MoonPark Review, June 2018
Floor lamp, stolen from husband’s college dorm sometime in the late 80’s
Nina Garcia and Sasha Maria, respectively
3. BIOGRAPHYJ. Edward Kruft is editor-in-chief at trampset and has had stories published or are forthcoming in such fine journals as Jellyfish Review, Lunate, Pithead Chapel, and Truffle. Originally from the western-most reaches of Washington state, he lives with his husband, Mike, and their adoptees—Siberian Husky Sasha Maria and Pom-Chow mix Nina Garcia—in NYC and in the Catskills. His fiction can be found on his website: http://jedwardkruft.com and he can be followed on twitter: @jedwardkruft.