[stylist] Writing Prompt for Anthology

[Donna Hill]

Hi Chris,
Here I am going through my In Box on the 4th of July and what a 
surprise! You are an excellent writer. I love this! You do a really good 
job at mixing up dialog and narrative. Of course, I do want to know what 
happened to Dennis and how his cousin ended up with the house.
Donna

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On 6/11/2010 1:52 PM, Chris Kuell wrote:
> Greetings fellow Writers. Below is my response to the writing prompt 
> Kerry posted a few days ago--about house, holiday, family. It's 3,250 
> words long, and is composed of 3 vignettes. It contains adult language 
> and situations, so if that bothers you, or if you are young enough to 
> feel your parents might object--please refrain. For those daring 
> enough to read, I welcome any comments, suggestions and criticisms. My 
> goal is to improve as a writer, and your feedback can help me do that.
>
>  *  *  *
>
>
> 57 Juniper Lane
>
> By Chris Kuell
>
>
> July 4, 1954
>
> Dennis Tafuri found his father half-crammed between the toilet and the 
> bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. He was putting a brass screw into 
> the little section of wall behind the shower where the pipes were 
> hidden. "Hey Pop-Mom says it's time to grill."
>
> "Tell her I'm almost done," Mr. Tafuri muttered around the spare screw 
> he held between his lips. He spit the screw into his palm, contorted 
> his back into an odd shape that allowed him to start the screw. 
> Various grunting sounds emanated as he manually drove the screw into 
> the wood panel. Large sweat spots grew under each arm, his back was 
> already soaked but he kept at it.
>
> Dennis waited quietly for his father to finish, then accepted the 
> screwdriver as the old guy wiggled himself out. His back cracked as he 
> got up, stretched and manipulated his body into its normal posture. 
> "Run and put that in my tool box," he said. "In the second tray with 
> the other screwdrivers. Got it?"
>
> "Got it," Dennis said as he ran to the stairs, took them two at a time 
> until a final leap cleared the last five. His landing rattled the 
> entire house.
>
> "Dennis!" his father bellowed. "Slow down!"
>
> He didn't. He couldn't. Kids like him were made for going fast-the 
> faster, the better. He took off again, sprinting through the kitchen 
> to the basement door. He flung it open, banging the doorknob into the 
> opposite wall, expanding the ever-growing hole in the plaster.
>
> Dennis had to slow down in the basement as it was dark and a little 
> bit creepy. He swung an arm out in front of his body hoping to feel 
> the pull-switch, or fend off any zombies that might be hiding down 
> here. At eight-years-old, he was old enough to fully realize the 
> danger zombies posed to the world. He had overheard his older brother 
> Frank and his pals discussing them. Commie Zombies were the worst, 
> since the Russians gave them their commands and they were programmed 
> to hit strategic areas in America-the greatest country on earth. Heck, 
> the greatest country in the universe. Dennis wasn't sure if Glendale 
> was a strategic area or not, but you couldn't take chances.
>
> The string grazed is hand. He yanked and blinked a few times because 
> he'd been staring right where the bare bulb was. Each time he closed 
> his eyes he saw a blood-red sun.
>
> The correct drawer to the toolbox was already open, so he tossed in 
> the screwdriver, slammed the drawer shut with his foot and sprinted 
> across the basement, pulling the light off at the last second before 
> running up the stairs like a mountain villager fleeing a rampaging 
> elephant.
>
> The adults in the backyard milled around, smoking and talking while a 
> group of his cousins were playing croquet. Aunt Ginny had on a red 
> Uncle Sam shirt, blue pants and bright white sneakers. Denis's mother 
> was holding a big platter full of burgers and hot dogs, obviously 
> irritated with his Pop who was opening up a can of Schlitz and 
> listening to Mr. Phipps tell another dirty joke.
>
> "I just don't understand why you had to do it today-the fourth of July 
> for crying out loud-while our family and friends are here," his mother 
> said.
>
> "You want the whole goddamned ceiling to fall in on us?" Pop said, 
> probably a little louder than he should have. "If I didn't fix that 
> leak, that's what woulda happened." He took a long drink of beer. "Now 
> I put in an access panel so next time I can get in there easier-the 
> way it shoulda been done in the first place." He put down his Schlitz 
> and took a big handful of meat from the platter. He placed each piece 
> strategically on the grill. "I just don't know about the numb-skulls 
> who built this house."
>
> Dennis searched the crowd for his Uncle Eddie. Uncle Eddie was the 
> coolest uncle a kid could have. He drove a motorcycle, a Triumph, 
> which was a British bike that Uncle Eddie said was the fastest.
>
> Dennis saw him with a girl in a yellow Dress that Mom said was too 
> short. A lit cig danced in the corner of his mouth as he talked."
>
> Hey, Uncle Eddie!"
>
> Uncle Eddie ran a hand through his greased-back hair, flicked his 
> Lucky Strike to the ground and crushed it out. "Well if it isn't old 
> Dennis-the-menace. What kind of hell you raisin' these days?"
>
> "Got any firecrackers?" Dennis asked. Last year Uncle Eddie let him 
> light off some ladyfingers and black cats, even though his mother had 
> told him not too. She said Dennis was too young-but he wasn't. After 
> all, he'd lit off seventeen of them and didn't get hurt. Or caught.
>
> "Can you keep a secret?" Uncle Eddie whispered. Dennis shook his head 
> vigorously in the affirmative.
>
> His Uncle drifted away from the crowd and the girl in the yellow dress 
> and reached into his pocket. When Dennis got closer, Uncle Eddie 
> pulled out a dull red ball with a green fuse. "You know what this is?"
>
> "Uh-unh," Dennis said.
>
> "A cherry-bomb. It's the most powerful firecracker there is."
>
> "Can I light it off?" Dennis asked.
>
> "Sorry kiddo, but this things strong as Half-a-stick of dynamite."
>
> Dennis's eyes nearly popped out. Half of a stick of TNT. They 
> continued walking past the croquet players to the edge of the 
> property. His Uncle pulled a small silver flask from a different 
> pocket, uncorked it and took a deep swallow.
>
> "C'mon, Uncle Eddie-lemme light it off. I won't get hurt-I promise."
>
> Uncle Eddie stared hard at him, like maybe he was seeing himself when 
> he was eight-years-old. "Tell you what. We'll do it together."
>
> "Neato!" Dennis said, bouncing up and down like an electrified slinky. 
> Uncle Eddie let him hold the cherry-bomb, which was lighter than a 
> marble and about the size of a Penney gumball.
>
> "Okay-listen very carefully," Uncle Eddie said. "As soon as you see 
> it's lit, you chuck it over towards the woods-not towards the people. 
> Got it?"
>
> "Got it," Dennis answered reflexively.
>
> His Uncle took out the Zippo he'd got from a friend who took it off a 
> dead Jap in the pacific. It had Japanese letters on it and the silver 
> casing glinted in the afternoon sun. "Soon as it's lit, you chuck 
> it-right?"
>
> Dennis nodded like one of those bobble-heads. With a flick of Eddies 
> thumb, fire sprouted from the Zippo. Dennis moved the tip of the 
> cherry-bomb fuse closer and closer to the flame until it started to 
> glow and shoot off tiny gold sparks.
>
> "Now," his Uncle said.
>
> Dennis watched the fuse like it was a mini-sparkler. He noticed the 
> burned fuse turning to ash before falling away like one of his Dad's 
> cigarettes when he fell asleep on the couch while watching a football 
> game.
>
> "Dennis-now!"
>
> Uncle Eddie sounded panicked, but Dennis wasn't worried. In fact, he 
> was thrilled. As the fuse burned the danger increased and every 
> endorphin in the boy's body turned to full throttle. With less than a 
> second of fuse left Dennis finally relinquished, throwing the 
> cherry-bomb with all his might. It exploded in a great ball of light 
> and noise not five feet from them, the sonic boom absolutely the most 
> incredible thing Dennis had ever heard. So close he felt the sound 
> wave pass right through him. And the explosion was so cool-a white 
> fireball about two feet in diameter. What power. How incredible.
>
> Dennis stood mesmerized until he felt a firm hand squeezing his 
> shoulder. Uncle Eddie, looking mad. His mother, obviously very upset, 
> shaking with tears. Through the echoes ringing in his ears he barely 
> heard her shout, "Dennis!"
>
>
>     *   *   *
>
> July 4, 1974
>
> Dennis Tafuri finally caved to his mother's constant ragging and 
> changed the record from, The Doors LA Woman, to Seals and Crofts, 
> which wasn't too bad harmony-wise. But it bored him half-to-death. 
> With, Summer Breeze, wafting across the backyard airwaves he loaded 
> the frozen burgers and dogs on the grill. The charcoal briquettes 
> still smelled a little like lighter fluid and weren't quite that 
> orange-gray color which meant right-on cooking, but that was groovy. 
> With a few minutes to kill, he grabbed a cold Miller from the Coleman 
> and went upstairs to his room-the same one he'd lived in since he was 
> born.
>
> Now the Stan Musial and Willie Mays posters and Red Sox pennants had 
> been replaced with a sunset mural his girlfriend had painted for him, 
> and a totally mellow tapestry he'd scored from a flower-child at a 
> Grateful Dead show in Topeka.
>
> Dennis turned on the radio, W R OK, the home of Rock-n-Roll, and was 
> treated to Eric Clapton playing Layla. Under the ashtray on his 
> bedside table he found a half-smoked roach, clamped it into a pair of 
> hemostats and sparked it up. That first wave of high hit him like 
> jumping into a cool lake after you've been camping deep in the woods 
> for about three weeks. So very welcome. Refreshing. Invigorating. 
> Nature's mellow-dee.
>
> He blew the smoke out the bedroom window-no need to get his Mom all 
> angry, bringing him down with her perpetual uptightness. A cop car 
> slowed in front of the house and pulled in the crowded driveway. Had 
> they seen him?
>
> No way. Was the music too loud? It was Seals and Crofts, for Christ's 
> sake. Instead of one cop, two got out of the pig-mobile, which made 
> Dennis nervous. He didn't have but a few joints worth of grass in the 
> house, but he did have almost ten grand from that last couple pounds 
> he and Duncan had moved. If the coppers wanted to search the house, 
> that might be hard to explain.
>
> Hell-he was just being paranoid. It was the fourth of July; they were 
> hosting a family cookout. Even the fuzz wouldn't be looking for 
> trouble on a day like today.
>
> Or maybe they would? Maybe they figured this was the perfect day to 
> bring down a bust.  Shit.
>
> Despite the lack of clarity in his thinking, Dennis snuffed out the 
> joint, popped it into his mouth and swallowed. It left a nasty, ashy 
> taste on his tongue.  In his closet he pulled down the Converse box, 
> removed the paper sack full of cash and went into the bathroom, which 
> smelled like a lavender factory from that crap his mother was always 
> buying. He put the toilet lid down, placed the bag on it and reached 
> in his pocket for the Swiss Army knife Pop had given him on his 
> eighteenth birthday. The last gift Pop had ever given him.
>
> It took some finagling to get the screwdriver blade out, but once he 
> did, Dennis wriggled like an otter between the toilet and the tub, 
> found a screw on the access panel and went to work. The screw hadn't 
> been budged in years, but once he got it started it came out quickly. 
> Downstairs he heard an authoritative knock, followed by his mother 
> saying, "Coming."
>
> With one screw out, Dennis started on the second. Sweat gathered on 
> his forehead. He gave himself a pep-talk. "C'mon Dennis-you can do 
> this. Don't panic. Just keep cool, Dennis. Cool as a cucumber. Focus."
>
> Second screw out, third screw started.
>
> "Dennis!" his mother yelled. She was out back. "I don't know where he 
> is. He was just at the grill putting on the hamburgers."
>
> Fourth screw out, but the thingee wouldn't open. Shit. He crammed the 
> blade of the screwdriver into the crack and tried to jimmy it. No good.
>
> "Dennis? Anybody see Dennis?"
>
> Somebody had painted the bathroom lime-green a few years ago, and that 
> had to be the trouble. Dennis opened the big knife blade and sliced 
> along the perimeter of the panel. Once that was done, with some  
> encouragement from his fist, the panel fell open. Dennis moved his arm 
> behind him to grab the paper bag of cash and crammed it underneath the 
> shower pipes by the tub. He returned the panel, and as he put the 
> first screw in he heard his mother and the fuzz come in the house 
> through the sliding glass doors in the living room. "Dennis? Are you 
> in here?"
>
> Sweat drenched his tee shirt now, and for a second he had a flashback 
> to his father in this same position twenty-odd summers ago, his shirt 
> stained with sweat and his mother wondering where in the hell he was. 
> How weird was that?
>
> "Dennis?"
>
> They were coming up the stairs. He got the third screw in and 
> struggled to start the fourth.
>
> "Dennis?" Heavy footsteps. "You up here?"
>
> He listened as his bedroom door was opened. The screw wobbled and 
> dropped to the floor, rolling to just under his ear.
>
> "Dennis?"
>
> He managed to retrieve it with his left hand and set it in the hole. 
> With supreme effort, he screwed it in and wiggled himself out onto the 
> floor.
>
> "Dennis?" His mother knocked at the bathroom door. "Are you in there?"
>
> "Yeah, Ma," he said, getting first to his knees and then to his feet. 
> He flushed the toilet and returned the Swiss Army knife to his pocket.
>
> When he opened the door he saw his mother, pale and frightened, and 
> two Hitler-esque boys in blue. Behind them, several of his little 
> cousins, Cousin Eddie's girls,  watched from the stairs while trying 
> to seem invisible.
>
> "Dennis, are you all right? You look awful," his mother said.
>
> "Dennis Tafuri?" one of the pigs asked.
>
> No, I'm Johnny Carson," he said.
>
> "You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything 
> you say." The cop droned on, reading his Moranda rights off an index 
> card while all the blood drained from Dennis's face.
>
> "What am I arrested for?"
>
> "Three days ago you sold two ounces of marijuana, a class one 
> substance, to a fifteen-year-old girl. She was wearing a tape recorder 
> and now you are going to jail. Hopefully, for a very long time."
>
> They spun him around and slapped on the cuffs. He half-expected one of 
> them to say-book him, Danno, like they do on Hawaii Five-O. But they 
> just lead him downstairs and into the backseat of the pig mobile. The 
> last thing he heard before they slammed the door to the outside world 
> shut was his mother crying, "Dennis!"
>
>
>      *   *   *
>
> July 4, 2004
>
> Hannah Atwell opened the sliding glass door with a push and stepped 
> onto the patio with a tray of beef and veggie burgers, Hebrew National 
> hot dogs and tofu-dogs for the twins, who wouldn't let a speck of meat 
> past their scrawny lips. Even if it was Kosher. Hannah probably 
> shouldn't have hosted the Fourth of July party this year, but with all 
> the turmoil in their lives, they needed a break. Something fun. Tom, 
> her unemployed and under-concerned husband was over in the side yard 
> throwing a Frisbee with the kids. Nine months now, and he'd only had 
> two interviews. If something good didn't happen soon, something bad 
> certainly would. Even with her cutting hair on the side, it simply 
> wasn't enough to keep up with the bills. All their savings were gone, 
> and now Tom had run out of unemployment.
>
> "Aunti Hannah?" Her niece Emily tugged on her skirt. She had the 
> biggest, bluest eyes Hannah had ever seen, and with those over-sized 
> ears she resembled an elf. "It's raining in the livin' room."
>
> "It's what?" Hanna asked while flipping a veggie burger.
>
> "It's raining in the livin' room," the little girl said again.
>
> "Okay, honey. I'll go check it out." Hannah scanned the people in her 
> backyard. "Hey Kevin-can you keep an eye on the grill for me?"
>
> Her cousin Kevin, who annoyed the hell out of Tom with his constant 
> advice about how to go about finding a job, gladly took the spatula 
> from Hannah. At the door, the sliding glass got stuck, again, since 
> the wheels were old and rusty and needed to be replaced. With a lift 
> and a shove she got it to move. Emily took her hand and skipped into 
> the living room. "See? I told you."
>
> A four or five foot patch of moisture now discolored the living room 
> ceiling. At the center, the liquid gathered into drops and fell with a 
> splash onto her oak coffee table.
>
> "Shit," Hannah shoved the coffee table out of the way. Her mind raced. 
> Water. Broken pipe. Upstairs-must be the bathroom.
>
> She hustled down into the basement, which reeked like wet cement,  and 
> searched for the light pull switch. Where was the goddamned thing? 
> She'd been bitching to Tom for years they needed a switch. It's the 
> twenty-first century-who the hell still uses pull switches?
>
> She felt the string, gave it a yank and the yellow incandescent light 
> illuminated the dank basement. The water main was over in one corner. 
> She found the shut-off valve and closed it. Next she went upstairs and 
> turned on the sink to release the pressure. Always release the 
> pressure, her father had told her all those years ago. Since Eddie 
> Tafuri hadn't had any sons, his daughters were the recipients of all 
> his plumbing and other worldly wisdom. Rightie-tightie, leftie-loosey. 
> Liquor to beer, never fear. Beer to liquor, never sicker.
>
> There was a pool of water by the toilet. Hannah tossed a couple bath 
> towels down and soaked it up. She put the towels in the sink and 
> noticed the water was creeping out from behind the shower. Not the 
> toilet-the shower, which would undoubtedly be a costlier repair. Shit. 
> There was an access panel underneath the toilet paper roll, so she 
> went to get a screwdriver.
>
> Outside she saw that Kevin was joyfully tending the grill, people were 
> chatting and the kids were playing with a hackey-sack. The odor of 
> grilling burgers drifted through the kitchen window and made her 
> stomach rumble. As usual, Tom was nowhere to be seen.
>
> She went to the tool drawer--the one under the countertop piled with 
> bills, found an appropriate screwdriver, a mini-flashlight, and 
> returned upstairs. How were they ever going to pay a plumber? And on 
> the fourth of July, of all days. They probably get double on a 
> holiday. Maybe she could fix it herself. Maybe it was just a gasket or 
> something. Maybe skid row wasn't as bad as she'd heard.
>
> Water still crept from beneath the access panel so she laid down a 
> towel and wiggled herself between the toilet and the tub, thankful for 
> the first time in her life that her boobs weren't too big. The screws 
> holding in the panel had been painted over with white paint, but with 
> some encouragement and a little cussing she got them all out. After a 
> few more swears and a swift jab, the panel came off, revealing the 
> pipes to the tub and shower. The pipes were wet and she couldn't tell 
> where the water was coming from.  She had to wriggle herself out, get 
> the flashlight, and wrangle herself back in place again to see the 
> pipes, and the bag, now soaked, which was crammed under the piping. 
> Had some half-wit used that to prop up the pipe? She reached in, 
> discovered the bag was full of something, and pulled it out. The bag 
> disintegrated in her hands, revealing a large bundle of wet paper. Wet 
> paper that was green in color and covered with numbers like 50 and 
> 100, and words like United States Treasury.
>
> Somewhere outside teenagers were firing off bottle rockets, people 
> were stuffing their faces with grill food, potato salad and 
> watermelon, while Hannah Atwell sat in wonder mouthing the words, God 
> Bless America.
>
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