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Faint Bell - A Story You Should Read Because I Said So, And I'm Smart.
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TITLE (EDIT)
Faint Bell - A Story You Should Read Because I Said So, And I'm Smart. |
DESCRIPTION
A southern lady waits for her man. No such luck.
[699 words] |
TITLE KEYWORD
Relationships |
AUTHOR
Scott W. Hazzard |
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
I hate my life.
[August 2001] |
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL ADDRESS
[email protected] |
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (9)
Are You Happy? (Poetry) A work in progress. [269 words] [Relationships]
Baby's Mr. Pearl (Poetry) Shakin' That Azz [186 words] [Relationships]
Cook Out, Everybody! (Poetry) Hero stuff. [78 words]
Falls Street (Novels) A young man deals with sexual desire in a small town by turning commercial. [61,211 words] [Mind]
Franky And The Crash (Short Stories) A gruff ragamuffin rampages through a city to become an anti-"pretty boy" -anti-hero. Read it. It's short, like your attention spans. [1,079 words] [Popular Fiction]
From The Author (Essays) The wonderful world of Hazzarding. [228 words] [Mind]
Sitting Still (Short Stories) An ex-writer reflects upon his miserable life while receiving a routine lap dance from his favorite stripper. [2,159 words] [Popular Fiction]
Tradegy Of Crows: Chapter 2 (Novels) Hazzard goes to Hell. 'nuff said. [16,121 words]
Tragedy Of Crows: Chapter 1 (Novels) A bitter college student falls into celestial turmoil when a lowly angel makes a bookkeeping error in the record halls of Heaven. Disaffected youth squares off against self-righteous angels, exhausted... [17,696 words]
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Faint Bell - A Story You Should Read Because I Said So, And I'm Smart.
Scott W. Hazzard
When eleven came Andrea stopped flipping through all three channels since it was utterly impossible to pretend that she wasn't trying to ignore the passage of time. It had been three hours, and he still hadn't shown up. This could mean several things. Of course, one of those things was surely the most probable, and coincidently, the hardest to deal with. Three years of several odd jilting hadn't taught her the simple fact that when a guy says, "Maybe," he means it.
But this was Stu Johnson, strapping, young and bald�. Bold, of course, bold was what she wanted to think, but "bald" always snuck in there, because� well, the crop wasn't growing in some places. He liked to cover it up with his black Harley Davidson hat. He wore chaps up to the porch five years ago on their prom night. And he called through the screen door, up the stairs, and she could hear him getting impatient pacing the porch in his cowboy boots. She made him wait, even though she had already put her hair up in that complicated red pile that was sure to stun him off his motorcycle. She had always wanted to tame that bad boy, show him Southern love, slow and sure. And he'd be hers when she wanted him. He'd have no choice.
All the while waiting for him was just a pause in the long careful planning of a lady, who had known when to let go, and when to be ready to reach long, arms around and grapple for life. Of course, the arms weren't as thin or as strong as they used to be. But the more years went by, his buzzed cut showing more skull day by day, he was hardly worth the radiance she had at age sixteen. She knew the dress didn't fit all that well, but the strings and straps held tight. She could get away with that, especially if he was going to be this late.
He was out there somewhere past the leaning, unpainted barn and the whimpering calves. Stu Johnson went to college, came back home to run his father's construction business. She saw him by the Miller's field, where he was looking to build a new house for some rich folk from New Jersey. Some pasty-faced gentleman in a gray suit was showing him all these scrolls of paper with blue and white lines, and nice clean shapes. She laughed at his nice black dress pants and shiny black dress shoes. How silly it looked with the Harley cap on top. But she didn't laugh after seeing him waving a shiny silver pen. And she noticed how Stu wasn't just nodding like he did when she always asked him important questions about love and living. He was making real responses. He was changing things. He wasn't even Stu. He was Mr. Johnson to everyone that mattered. Out there he had said a great many thing, but to her, when she swayed down towards him past the pile of 2x4x6s, he just said, "maybe." But when she first waved her soft hands and said, "Hello" and he did that double take, it very well might have been because he was surprised. It doesn't take a smart boy that long to remember somebody's face, if the face hadn't changed much.
She stood there looking out into the night through the window of the front door. She saw her reflection, a painted ghost floating above the screen door.
She said, "Oh, hell" and it didn't travel far. Then, she pulled open the door, pushed back the screen, and stepped into late October air. Dead leaves were rustling, her daddy's calves were still, the whole farm had the yellow tint cast down from the dirty porch light. Someone ought to climb up there and fix that thing, she thought. And she reached up over her head to touch the high wall of red hair, to unfurl it, and let it fall upon her shoulders. But, she let her soft hand fall and decided, instead, to pace the creaking porch, thinking about how bad he'd look when he'd be back again.
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READER'S REVIEWS (4)
DISCLAIMER: STORYMANIA DOES NOT PROVIDE AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR REVIEWS. ALL REVIEWS ARE PROVIDED BY NON-ASSOCIATED VISITORS, REGARDLESS OF THE WAY THEY CALL THEMSELVES.
"Is anyone goind to say anything about this? Is it that bad? Really? All right. I'm sorry. : (" -- Hazzard.
"No, it's not that bad Hazzard, but I usually don't advise unless specifically asked to in the Advisor Column, because I've found it tends to make people angry when I point out their flaws when they don't want me to. As for a brief reason as to why your story isn't being reviewed, feel free to look at For Those Seeking Advice in the Advisor Column, or just look at all the stories surrounding yours and see how many times they've been reviewed. I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get around to your story, but it needs to be understood that I'm just one man. Currently I'm working on a better way to clear up all this reviewing mess... wish me luck. This short story was exactly as you put it, a woman waiting for a guy who doesn't show up. Two grammatical errors though. Line six should be "jiltings." Line thirty-eight should be "things." I've also always wondered how a woman can keep a fancy hairstyle intact on the back of a motorcycle, but I suppose I'll never know." -- The Advisor.
"For what it's worth, it's not a bad effort, but it's too subtle for most of the kids who read and write on this site. You could have added a nice twist to the ending by not revealing how many years she waited for this guy to come around until the very end, which would lend a surprise element to the tale. You could even have made her into a "Delta Dawn" or someone like that. Still, not bad though." -- Richard.
"Not enough zombies. I think he should show up and be all "Brains!" Your descriptions are sexier than EM Forster's." -- ida ho.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 2001 Scott W. Hazzard |
STORYMANIA PUBLICATION DATE
August 2001 |
NUMBER OF TIMES TITLE VIEWED
2645
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