The continental clouds

April 5, 2024Steven Baird 11 Comments

Fresh cut oak was stacked behind the restaurant, a scent thickened by rain. He recalled Miss Tracee liked the way it burned in a stove but complained about the stink. Hiccuped out of pig mud, she said. She wouldn’t keep it in her house, she had him bring it in from the woodshed whenever a fire was required. He carried it wobbly over stone ground, and the bark sometimes poked holes in his shirts. She fussed at him for not using the wheelbarrow. Or carry it with your hands, she said, not your arms, I can’t keep repairing your clothes. Lord, child. Spelman heard those words enough, every time he stepped inside, came in from the rain, had not bothered to scrape his boots with equal vigor on the outside doormat. Lord, child.

Distant, he noticed a torn restaurant bill taped to the door, something written with blue ink in a spidery hand. A woman watched him from the cash counter and shook her head. He wasn’t wearing his spectacles, couldn’t read what was written, but he saw the expression on her face. He pushed on the door, but it was locked firmly enough not to rattle. The woman frowned and turned away. Spelman wished he had a smoke, something to keep his hands busy, to root for matches, or hold between his fingers. He didn’t want to think about Miss Tracee any more. She finally went blind, he heard, sometime during his first year in prison. He couldn’t remember who told him that. Her vision was always poor, even with strong bifocals. That was the last thing he heard about her. He couldn’t recall who told him that, or if it was even real.

No seats? said Albert Tine.

Don’t know for sure, said Spelman. Place is locked. I can’t read the sign on account of no spectacles.

No? Let me take a look. He leaned into the note and squinted hard.

It says, We are closed to the public tonight on account of paying our respects to Brother Jonny Wine of Ashwagandha Baptist Church. There will be a Bible study after the meal. Thank you and come back tomorrow. Albert Tine cleared his throat. So I guess that means we’re out of luck for a meal.

We can’t just go in? They don’t know we’re not here to pay respects.

Yeah they do. It ain’t worth it. I’ll pick us up a couple of cokes and candy bars to get us the rest of the way. If you have to use the toilet, there’s some bushes behind the kiosk.

I wouldn’t go in there even if it was free food, Spelman said. He spat on the pavement. The hell with them. Didn’t care for the way she looked at me.

She who?

The one behind the cash register. Like I was nothing. No one.

Don’t take it personal. You are no one. And so am I. These people keep to their own, don’t care for strangers.

Doesn’t give them the right.

Yes. It does. This is their place, that’s all. You and me, we don’t have a place, but we will, once we land where someone will have us. Do you have a sweet tooth or a salt one?

Spelman grinned. I can eat sugar by the pound, but it don’t always agree with me.

Maybe tonight it will, he said, and steered Spelman, reluctant to leave, towards the car.

I just want to get away from here, he said. I don’t have any good thoughts about anyplace lately.

City lights and music, that’s what you need, said Albert Tine. He pulled out his wallet and fumbled with a few bills. The wallet was old and thin. You go on over and get us something while I unlatch my fiddle and play something for you. I told you I would, and so I will.

What, here?

Yessir. Right here in the parking lot, under the stars and before God and the righteous and dead pastor from Ashwagandha Baptist Church, may he rest in peace above these continental clouds.

Alright, said Spelman. And amen, if he’s deserving of it.

The boy there wasn’t much more than eighteen. He looked like a girl trying to look like a boy, but he was polite and looked at Spelman with rightful suspicion. Inside the kiosk the lights were soft and colorful with Christmas bulbs draped over cigarette ads and Coca-Cola signs. A brighter 100-watt burned above the cash register and the countertop and part way on the crossword puzzle the boy was attempting. Spelman saw at least twenty types of gum and candy bars, different sizes and flavors of coke, shiny potato chip bags, a rack of cigarette brands he’d never heard of. I only got nine dollars, he said. What’s your name, son?

Ed, said the boy.

Well, Ed, tell me what I can get for nine dollars. And I’d like some change back, because it doesn’t seem fair to spend all my friend’s money. I’d like two cokes and whatever else.

I don’t understand you, said Ed.

I am asking for suggestions, Ed. I’ve been away a long time and I don’t know what this cash will buy me. Fill up a bag and I’ll be fine with whatever you choose. Otherwise, we’ll be here all night, me trying to decide, and neither of us wants that.

Umm, okay, said Ed.

There’s no need to be scared of me.

Oh, I ain’t scared. You’re the second person who’s talked to me tonight, the first being your friend. I make two-fifty-five an hour, and they won’t even let me use the toilet in the restaurant because I’m not staff, and I’ve been here longer than some of those waitresses. Hell, you can have the whole goddamn place if you want, and I will gladly give you change.

I ain’t robbing you, Ed. Don’t want that, I’m an honest man. You can do whatever you want with the money, but don’t be calling me a thief.

Wouldn’t do that. I just want out of this shithole.

Yessir, said Spelman. I can understand wanting that.

Ed started to fill up a bag. Do you smoke, mister? We got fresh packs of Marlboros yesterday.

I thank you, no. Keep a pack for yourself if you want.

I’ll save them for yonder Baptists and waitresses.

That’s fine. You about done? My friend over there is wanting to play me a song or two on his fiddle.

Does he play loud? I’d sure like to hear it.

I’ll mention it. I’m sure he’d be agreeable.

Ed held up a sagging plastic bag and he only took eight dollars for it. Appreciate the conversation, mister, he said. I don’t get much of that here.

Go find something you like to do, Ed. Make some money, be fair to others as you’ve been to me. I can’t guarantee you’ll go anywhere, but you will be thought of kindly.

Yessir, I will, said Ed, and he poked a pack of Marlboros into his shirt pocket. Thank your friend for the music even if I can’t hear it.

Spelman said he would, and he walked back to the car where Albert Tine had already unlatched his fiddle from its case. He was passing the bow across a rosin cake. Haven’t played her in a long time, he said. Spelman watched Tine’s hands and saw a kind of tenderness he hadn’t expected. The man cleared his throat theatrically and nestled the fiddle below cheek and chin, shifting it just so. This one, he said, is called Drowsy Maggie. I learned it before I married Maybellene the first time.

And he played with no pauses or hesitation or shyness, just played it clean out of the box, and Spelman thought it was the most profound thing he’d ever heard. He closed his eyes about the middle of the song, and an image came to mind of taking a slow train trip across a flat countryside, soft hills a soul could walk on for miles. He was both inside that train, watching himself walk, and outside that train, watching himself ride past. He held his breath until he thought he might fade away to such a place. When Albert Tine stopped, he grinned a little shyly. Not too bad for an old man, he said, though I’m not as smooth as I once was. Grit gives it a different flavor, I’d say.

Play it once more, said Spelman. That was –, he said and he could not find a proper word for how it was. That was fine, he said. More than fine, that was better than fine. Play it once more.

No sir, that’s a special one I only play once every thirty years or so, in between marriages. But I do have another. It’s a sad song, something I picked up in Virginia a long time ago under suspicious circumstances in an inauspicious saloon. Elk River Blues it’s called.

And he played it, slow and simmering with a lonesomeness that flowed from his fingers and into the air, a sound that rose above the black cypresses and sank into the crevices of the oak pile behind the restaurant. Some folks were peering at them from inside, their faces shiny from their own reflections, set in candlelight. Some were pointing, but most just watched. Spelman turned and saw that Ed had stepped out of his kiosk and was moving both feet on the pavement in a kind of clumsy dance, and he wore a big smile on his face, an unlit cigarette between his fingers. If Albert Tine noticed them at all, he did not show it; his own face was lost to something older than him, older than all of them. Then he stopped and the sound vibrated a little longer, bound for somewhere else.

Lord, said Spelman, and he lowered his head and coughed out some phlegm. I don’t want you to drive away without me, he said.

Albert Tine set a hand on Spelman’s shoulder, and then started to put the fiddle away, and it was like watching him put a baby in its crib. A single pole shone varnished yellow light upon them, and he decided he wanted to go to Hendersonville after all. He walked over to Ed and borrowed a smoke, and together they smoked for a while, watching Albert Tine pack things up. The cigarette smoke made his eyes water up a little, which was, in that particular moment, a good reason for his eyes to be a little shiny.

Transition

December 31, 2023Steven Baird 14 Comments

We do not talk about her passing.
That is settled language.

you complain about the undercooked soup,
the soggy hambone beside the crockpot
dripping on brown butcher paper
as if it were our lives

You still believe in unseen things
which, once seen
become clutter

Ask when there is nothing
grief is not nothing

Nomination

August 31, 2023Steven Baird 34 Comments

It is with much surprise to hear I was nominated for ‘Best of the Net’ for one of my short stories, “Lamentations of a Farmer.” Many, many thanks to Suzanne Craig-Whytock and DarkWinter Literary Magazine for the nomination. The story can be found here should you wish to read it. And please check out the exceptional writing in DarkWinter. It should also be noted that Suzanne is also a remarkable writer who has begun to publish novellas, novel-length manuscripts, short story collections, and poetry collections with a twist, so it’s well worth a visit. Thank you!

5 a.m., Windermere Street

July 29, 2023December 17, 2023Steven Baird 18 Comments

Each leaf is traced in bone and silver by 5 a.m. The shadow of their collective drapery spreads across porches like bayou moss. Dogs bark from near/far and their timbre echoes between the trees. Windermere Street is old, or feels old, and the houses, post-war and tired, are unhappily wed to crabgrassed and feathered dandelion lawns. You just know that a broken picture window or a busted water tank will finish a family. It’s cheaper to rent over on Ross Street, where there are no tall trees but plenty of scrub around the parking lots. Radio Flyers in the front yard are the new sacrament these days. Shirtless boys in Superman underpants, and girls in red one-piece swimsuits are stuffed into inflatable pools like jelly into donuts. They drape over the side of the blown-up plastic, panting, complaining about the heat with the same disdain as their fathers. It is learned behavior. But that’s all for later in the day.

Right now, as his mother would say, is the time for silence and not for fat tap-dance shoes. He didn’t understand the meanness of that phrase until much later. Don’t show off, buster. Be quiet. It is never ‘the creamy caramel softness of dawn,’ but goddamn morning light, okay?, or just morning. Or, better yet, just shut up about it, everyone knows what time it is, it doesn’t have to be so fah-la-la.

And so he walks Windermere Street every morning in silence, as he has for many years, two miles in from the lean edge of Shiloh. He walks before the paperboys roll out their bicycles, before the milk trucks deliver to the stores, before the first wren scratches out a worm. There is that oddly specific coolness on the back of his neck that tells him he is alive and still vital. The dogs will eventually lose the scent or the interest. The noise of his shoes on pavement, or crunching on gravel when he crosses the intersection by the old middle school, seems subtractive. Of course the silence isn’t absolute. There are always voices from behind kitchen windows, drifts of radio music, dishes rinsed, toilets flushed. And prayers, always prayers: help us through this day for Christ’s sake, in exhausted supplication, without pause between the words, without understanding what they’re asking for, and which bear no more weight than the animal drippings from a backyard grill. Help us find silence in ourselves is what they’re asking, and that may be the only thing he understands. He knows about learned behavior better than most.

The lake house

June 3, 2023Steven Baird 23 Comments

This story was originally to be included in Asunder, baby, but I switched it out for something else, and I can’t remember why. Maybe because of its quiet circumspect tone, and I thought it might get lost. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for reading. — Steve

Francesca will miss the lake, but only in summer.

There is loneliness here now, an airiness between the burden of making toast and the reach for a second cup. It’s a melancholy that balloons the laundry on the line; she says she’ll release it one day, just to see how far a four-hundred thread count sheet can sail. Spiders will still comb through the woodpile at the side of the house, the side not facing Lake Michigan. They’ll burrow inside the lineations of bark and under the roughed-up kindling. Come winter, she’ll see more of them inside, on the corners of scatter rugs, between the summer shoes. That she isn’t squeamish about them anymore tells her how much things have changed.

She and Richard had lived here since 2012, but she still thinks of it as his. He set no boundaries or rules, said it was equally theirs. But he was here first. It was his decision to tear down the dock after the Halloween storm in 2014. The wind shifted it hard from its moorings, so it no longer sat symmetrical to the front deck. He would rebuild it in the spring, he said, but spring fell away and summer was too hot, projects came up, the roof needed work, and they — he — decided a dock wasn’t really necessary.

The way that he pushed things aside was troubling. It was one less piece of clutter to worry about, he said, one less place to sit and watch the lake, she thought.

She hadn’t returned since the day of his funeral. Coming home, she saw there were minor seasonal changes, some not quite comprehensible. There was a plainness in objects she hadn’t considered before. She traced her fingers along the cold cedar handrail, hoping to feel the places Richard had touched when his hands were still warm and accessible; the porch light sconces glowed with unequal brightness, and they cast contradictory and unsettled shadows; the yellowed slashes of the venetian blinds were canted, evoking a drunken peek-a-boo tease; dead leaves poked between the deck’s latticework, already beyond the contentious crunchy-dry stage and now drooped in wet decomposition; an expanse of dewed cobwebs stretched between the furthest cedar branches, drenched in morning silver and looking as sturdy as bridge cables.

“So, do you still teach?” Mae asked her.

And there. A dead chipmunk between mounds of mummified marigolds, belly eviscerated, a torn cabbage leaf still in its maw, maggots scattered across its chest like wedding rice.

“Actually, I’m a librarian,” Francesca said. “People sometimes mix them up. ‘Come with me if you want to read’,” she added with a passable Schwarzenegger accent.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. Sorry, an inside joke.”

The sky was muddy gray, which seemed right. Everything felt suppressed, as if the house was holding its breath for her. She only had to turn the key and open the door for things to return to their natural state.

And so she did.

“This is my disaffection of any god not listening,” she said aloud, and wondered if her younger self — her ghost self — would understand this as a passive-aggressive temper tantrum and not a real declaration.

“Richard said you teach young children,” said Mae.

“That’s sort of correct,” said Francesca. “I read to them and encourage them to read outside the school. Some of them do, some of them even enjoy it. But there’s no telling who will show up on reading days, which are Tuesdays mornings and Thursdays after lunch hour. Isn’t that funny? Libraries and public schools may be the only institutions that have a prescribed Lunch Hour. And prisons, I suppose. I’ll bet it’s even posted on bulletin boards. ‘12 p.m. until 1:00 p.m. is hereby designated as the Official Hour of the Lunch’.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

“It isn’t a lack of enthusiasm for reading that stops them, it’s the parents. Their work schedules, babysitting schedules, family situations, evictions, divorces, their laziness, drunkenness, habitual unemployment. You really can’t blame the kids.”

“Sounds rough,” said Mae, who discreetly looked at her watch.

“I also teach the children how to interpret their favorite stories through watercolors. Some of them have become quite good at it. But that’s another story. For later.”

“Hey, listen,” said Mae. “Do you think I could call you about Rick’s drawings later in the week? I really hate to be a bother, but I don’t want to be the only one without a lifejacket when Ellis-Martin starts to go under.”

“Sure, all right,” said Francesca. “I’ll be going back home tomorrow morning. I’ve been avoiding it since the funeral, but I suppose it’s time to settle back in.”

“That sounds great,” said Mae, who sounded like it was not so great.

Francesca thought: I’ll bet you were the girl everyone wanted to fuck in college. Who knows, maybe even still. You’ve got that Mary Tyler Moore sparkle and those roller derby hips and those goddamn freckles, so why not? “Yes. Do you still have the old landline number? I don’t think we ever changed it.”

“I’m sure I do. I’ll check my old post-its. I can’t tell you how much this will help, Frankie. I mean it!”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” she said. Who the hell holds onto their old post-its? she wondered. Just the sparkly girls from college, that’s who. She felt marginally ashamed for thinking ungenerous thoughts, but she was a widow now — was that technically correct, since she and Richard had never married? Could that be challenged in court for some reason? And who really cared what kind of thoughts she was having? She was In Mourning, and therefore deserved a little latitude for whatever thoughts she might have.

ii.

Francesca left the house on the lake in the shape of a snapshot.

There were rudimentary decisions to make regarding the style of dress and shoes she would choose, the slightest pieces of jewelry, the restrained makeup that would help her look more lifelike, cheeses and deli meats and an appropriate wine, what would be good, can someone please help?

When the gathering was done, she, in her exile, dishes washed and set on the draining board, packed a bag and drove until exhausted. She spent the week shut in a motel off the interstate, free, finally, to mourn by herself. By Friday afternoon, she was ready to come home.

When she re-opened the house, there was still a drift of elderberry candles coming from the bedroom, still the sturdy fragrance of garden herbs rising from her kitchen counter where she had spread clusters of rosemary, dill, and thyme on paper towels. She couldn’t remember why she did this, only a dim hope that, when she returned, the place would smell like she still belonged to it.

Francesca could recall the names of the two women who set up the buffet. Della and Joyce. Had she adequately thanked them? They prepared a crock pot filled with aromatic honey-garlic meatballs and set it beside a teak wood tray of prosciutto and calzone and a wheel of sharp cheddar beside rows of simple cutlery beside paper plates beside a stack of thick napkins beside baskets of picked-over bread and rolls beside — no, someone had moved the plates of provolone and olives to the coffee table where they left marks on the cherrywood. People arrived — more than expected, many from Richard’s pre-Frankie days — and they offered condolences, said kind things in stumbly voices, mingled amongst themselves, and then left. Most of them called him Ricky and there were quite a few Ricks and one Richie. Hardly anyone called him Richard. They all seemed genuine in their appreciation and fondness for him. There were old softball buddies, work friends (but no one from Ellis-Martin, his former company), new and still-friendly clients, people who knew him from college, everyone he had ever fucking known since he was a boy, and they only knew Frankie as his wife, or his girlfriend, or companion animal, or whatever. It was dispiriting how many of them didn’t even know her name. She made a joke about it, suggested name tags next time around, and was rewarded with wan smiles. It was a sunny afternoon, she remembered, so she lowered the venetians in all the rooms so the guests wouldn’t be blinded by the lake water. There was soft piano music spraying from the speakers, and people reached for her hands to offer and receive comfort. She made note of those descending, giving hands and saw that most were wearing a wedding ring. That was interesting. The widow wears no ring, she thought. “You’re holding up so well,” an older woman in an expensive black pantsuit told her. “So sorry about your loss, my dear,” said a man who wore a gray Armani suit and whose fingers were so smooth they barely allowed for knuckles. “He’s with Jesus now,” said a harried middle-aged woman who carried with her an olive cable knit sweater. Frankie told her it was beautiful. “Yes, it is,” replied the woman. A real estate agent named Kip Kyle — it said so, right there on the business card he slid into her hand like a love note — offered to assist her if she “wanted a nice place in the city instead of this.” He wore no wedding ring, but did have a jazzy topaz on his pinky finger.

And this, now, home again, Frankie listened for the different notes of the house, the familiar sounds, the hum of the refrigerator, the unsynchronized ticks and tocks of different clocks in different rooms, the flutter of fluorescence in the kitchen. She realized she was waiting to hear Richard’s voice arrive from another room, for his breath to rush towards her.

Already, the telephone dock was flashing its faux-urgent come-on. Why can’t they leave me alone? But it was Ophelia, just her Ophelia, the only other person in the world whose voice she wanted to hear.

“Hey, Francesca, it’s just me. Just checking in, haven’t heard from you all week.” Tired, as if she just woke up, or hadn’t gone to bed yet. “Listen, I’m sorry about missing the uh, gathering, you know I can’t handle those things. I really am sorry. I know he was decent, decent to you, and that’s what matters.” A sigh, a short cough, the snap of a cigarette lighter, a deep slithering inhale. “Call me if you want. Or even if you don’t want. I need to hear from you. Remember, I’m back on the coast. Ha, so to speak. Suze is still in Arizona, maybe for a while.” Cough. “Sorry, bad joke. Seems like I’m fucking up with everyone lately. But this isn’t about me. Call me. Oh, this is Thursday, so I’ll be at my meeting tonight between 7 and 9:30, thereabouts. Atascadero time, remember? Same number. Okay, bye. Love you.”

And she cried. She cried and it felt more cleansing and more real than whatever it was she felt in the anonymous motel room. Sometimes, she supposed, you can only find your truest grief in the place where you left it. After a while, she lit the remains of the candles in her bedroom and waited for the appropriate amount of time to pass before she called her daughter back. In fucking Atascadero, California.

Francesca knew she would need to build a fire soon, but did not wish to be like Sisyphus, forever pushing a wood-filled wheelbarrow up a steep hill. She waited until daylight was washed away in the lake and wondered if the spiders were done for the season and she would stomp on them and damn them if they got in her way.

#BookReview: Asunder, baby by Steven Baird

June 1, 2023December 17, 2023Steven Baird 8 Comments

Many, many thanks to Elizabeth Gauffreau for her kind and thoughtful review of ‘Asunder, baby.’

Elizabeth Gauffreau

Click Image to purchase Asunder, baby from Amazon.

Spotlight on Steven Baird’s Asunder, baby

I am very pleased to shine a spotlight on Steven Baird’s collection of stories and poetry, Asunder, baby. A while back, fellow author Diana Peach encouraged me to check out his work, and I’ve been following his blog, Ordinary Handsome, ever since. I was hooked on the excerpts he shared from Asunder, baby, and I bought the book as soon as it came out. In a recent blog comment, he noted how interested he is in the evolution of a writer’s craft. Because this is an interest of mine as well, I asked him to share his thoughts, including the question of experimental fiction. You will find his response below: “Evolution of the Author’s Craft.” The bold text in the first paragraph perfectly articulates what I love about his work. Thank you, Steven!

My…

View original post 764 more words

Roberta Writes – An introduction to In the Tree’s Shadow my D.L. Finn #Newbook #readingcommunity #shortstories

April 8, 2023April 20, 2023Steven Baird 5 Comments

Today, I am delighted to introduce talented author and poet, D.L. Finn, whose new book, In the Tree’s Shadow, is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Welcome, Denise!

Introduction

Thank you, Robbie, for having me here to discuss my upcoming release, In the Tree’s Shadow.

Today I’m happy to share the new book trailer. I put it together on Canva, which I find easy to work with. They have access to the needed images and have a selection of music to choose from, but I went with my husband’s song, “Soar.”

There are twenty-seven stories, and I could only highlight a few in the video and blurb. During the coming weeks, there will be posts that will focus on twenty-one stories from the book.

Here’s the book trailer:

Blurb

A collection of short stories where dreams and nightmares co-exist.

Nestled inside these pages, you’ll meet a couple in their golden…

View original post 512 more words

Five Star reviews for ‘Asunder, baby’

February 12, 2023August 21, 2023Steven Baird 20 Comments

Thank you for these generous reviews:

Asunder, Baby by Steven Baird is a profound collection of prose and poetry. In his introduction, Baird conveys that short stories have never been easy for him to write. Yet, his words flow seamlessly, creating such vivid settings that I can’t fathom him having any difficulty at all. His stories and poems reveal loss, beauty, love, and despair with an intensity that digs deeply into the hearts of his readers. Baird’s originality and authenticity in portraying his characters and backdrops are the brilliance of this intellectual compilation.

I found myself dog-earing page after page. Many of the stories and poems turned into favorites, but a few I’d like to highlight are “Where we go dancing,” “Your father’s Delta 88,” “Cinnamon Suites,” “The last angel of the Lord,” and “Rhapsody.”

An example from “Where we go dancing”

“…I can dance the ears off a row of corn when I have a mind to. Why, that corn becomes ashamed of itself and wishes it could be half as worthy as old dry cabbage or a leaf of backfield tobacco then have to endure another minute of the spectaculation of my feet.”

And from “Your father’s Delta 88”

“…and watch the eddies pull quilt-shaped flowers along their creases, folding them, unfolding them, pressing their petals into wine.”

Asunder, Baby is the first book I’ve read from this author, but I look forward to reading more of his incredible storytelling and poetic verse. Highly recommended for those who love prose and poetry that have you pondering and deeply feeling at the same time. – Lauren Scott

I first encountered Steven Baird’s writing several years ago when a mutual friend posted a link to one of his short stories. I was enthralled and begin to follow him on his website, anxiously awaiting each new piece. Steven never—and I mean never—disappoints. His writing is always evocative, his characters compelling, and he creates emotional landscapes that stay with you years later. This new collection is no different. I keep going back and re-reading the stories and wishing there were more. – Suzanne

“Asunder, Baby” is a unique assortment of short stories and poetry. The entire book has a poetic flare and presentation with a mixture of beautiful and dark images. I enjoyed many stories and poems and how some characters and storylines appeared more than once. Here are a few that caught my eye: “Where we go dancing,” “A gopherwood box,” “Appomattox,” “The middle of a very rainy afternoon,” “Louisiana baptism,” and “Pentimento.” This is for those who enjoy short stories and poetry that take them into a moment with vivid and insightful descriptions. It differs from other collections, and I appreciate that difference. – D.L. Finn

Asunder, baby is a chronological series of short stories with different but similar settings and small-town characters. Baird is a literary author, and some of the stories have atypical punctuation (still totally clear, though; as an example, the story titles do not have conventional capitalization). Other stories include poetry verses or the lyrics of retro-popular songs. With the songs comes a bit of nostalgia. I bet ya start singing the songs in your head like I did.

Baird’s dialogue passages are marvelous in that they move the story along while defining the characters who speak it. Baird is also good with quotable bits. I can’t help but put one in this review:

“…An age ago when we were an age that never impressed us much.” (Ain’t that the truth?!)

“Light of the West Saugerties” at the beginning of the collection and “This day, just now” at the frame the collection with stories of Birdie and Harry. You get a sense of what’s gone on between them over the years that are missing while the other stories in the collection take over. It makes for an incredibly gratifying journey.

Overall, this collection is literary and intellectual and slightly experimental, and it’s written with the obvious skill of an author who has the writing chops to pull it off. Five huge stars! — Priscilla Bettis

Steven Baird’s atmospheric, genre-blurring collection of short fiction and poetry is the work of a true original. Baird’s use of language is so finely tuned for sound and cadence, there were times I would be hard-pressed to label the piece one genre or the other–nor did I want to.

The writing reminded me of William Faulkner’s work, both in terms of prose style and the ability to put the reader in two worlds as once: the real world of Delta 88’s, Wonder Bread, and television and the world his characters inhabit that could never exist outside of Baird’s pages. (To be clear, I do not make this comparison lightly.)

While the stories and poems are varied in subject matter, time period, and narrative stance, they all have in common the rending of family or psyche, in one form or another. Some relationships are ripped asunder by abuse, while others are torn in small, ordinary ways that slip by unnoticed until the damage has been done.

There is Audrey, who discovers that her recently deceased husband was not the man she thought he was. Or take Daniel, whose act of kindness does not end well. Fifty-seven-year-old Joseph remembers his childhood as “being dust.”

Then there are Harry and Birdie, whose relationship, told over the course of multiple stories, is more of an unraveling than a tearing asunder. At each stage of their relationship, regardless of from whose point of view the particular story is told, my heart went out to both of them. In fact, their relationship was the standout in the collection for me.

I highly recommend Asunder, baby as character-driven stories that achieve Their power through interior monologue and narrative voice. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, these characters have lived the agony of bearing an untold story inside them–until Steven Baird gave their stories voice. Moreover, most of the stories are told in first-person, as if to say, “This is MY story, not yours, and only I can do it justice in the telling.” – Elizabeth Gauffreau

Asunder, baby is available from Amazon

Waves

October 2, 2022Steven Baird 16 Comments

We witnessed the waves as bystanders, watched them spill into limestone gulleys, and we waited for something different this time: a new color, perhaps, to percolate from their churn, or for the sun to gild the shore with a little more gold.

You pilfered persimmons

but only for the seeds

from Missus Mead’s trees

she can only eat one piece of fruit at a time

unless she slices them for pies

then I will inform her of the deed

but if the trees grow elsewhere, will they even be hers?

they will be closer to the water

such a long walk from her orchard

they will grow in her memory

but they were still pilfered

and now I fancy strawberries

Your words do not weigh enough, my father said. We need to build you up. You know how to use a walkie-talkie, right?

I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. Words don’t weigh enough? Walkie-talkie? I had just finished high school two weeks earlier, was about to turn 18, and he signed me up to work on a road crew. With muscles unleavened and shoulders like butter knives, I didn’t think that was a good idea.

But to look at him, even casually, you knew the word ‘no’ was not an option. His dimensions were broad, but, you would think, unremarkable; his face, a modest clay, was a little too plain without benefit of finely-tuned details. Chin, just so, maybe slightly too flat, but not insubstantially so, though his nose, a scintilla too blunt for a man who, you would suppose, possessed a diminished sense of smell; a broad forehead, yes, shaped for good hats, like a fedora or a gray felt Homburg. And eyes: well, that’s what would stop you from thinking him average or dull. Dark green, swamp green eyes. Curious eyes, but not yearning or imploring. You would conclude: here was an intelligent man, but wait, also a troubled man, but no, pointedly philosophical, brutal, vivid, imaginative. You never knew his temperament before he spoke, and the man was not a talker. His voice was naturally soft, but it carried, and it made you interested in what he had to say, made you crane your neck so you could watch him strip the words to their plainest enunciation.

So ‘no’ was not a choice. I joined a work crew as a flagman on my eighteenth birthday.

He wrote:

You craved the wild fruit of Pompeii, you exclaimed

and as a young man, i sought it

there was no such flora in northern California,

so of course in Sausalito, i just bought it.

I was to be put to rest in the second cheapest coffin he could afford. They haggled, Mr. Bueford D. Weill, Jr. and he, but the words ‘dignity has no price tag,’ put him off.

“That I should kiss my son’s cheek and lay my hands square on his shoulders is all the dignity he requires,” my father said. “He was not a ‘mahogany and antique bronze finish’ kind of boy; planks and sturdy bolts and a comfortable mattress would do him fine. He respected a dollar and a firm bed. He won’t think less of me, because he’s deceased, of course, but I think he might respect me, even dead, if I did not have to forgo a mortgage payment for the sake of a fluffed pillow and half a chesterfield.”

It was agreed, then, that I should be put to flame, and whatever residue remained of me be poured into the lake or, more likely, latch onto a substantial happenstance of a come-along wind to play-along with my ash.

I don’t know what I thought of this much fuss, with all corporeal appetites for sight and such no longer of any interest to me. I was waiting for him, I think, to say goodbye in a way that would end all complications between father, son, and whatever ghosts wound between us. A simple, even clumsy, goodbye, would be fine, but he held onto his grief with both hands.

My dream had a beginning, he said. We walked along a canopied path, prolific with beach grass and the skeletons of striped bass, and we were the same age. I could not feel the warmth of the sand, but I told you it was warm and you agreed, yes, it was warm. And then it was gone, all of it, except for the water, and it was gray and filled with stones. I told you it was cold, and it felt cold, and you said, yes, it was cold. You gathered persimmon seeds, my hand reached to receive them, and I woke up holding nothing.

And I told you that a Buick Skylark ignored my Stop paddle and sped past me, filled with boys my age, and they all wore the same cartoonish grins, shiny with spit and noise. I waved, frantic, to Ronny and his crew, who noticed the car, of course, and I was reprimanded by Mister Douglas Hawkes as we stood beside his pick-up truck. What else could I do? I memorized the license plate, but what else could I do? I forgot that I could speak, that I could yell, I only waved, waved like a dunce, as if I could command the waves to relent.

And my father, still dreaming, said, I dreamed of something that became nothing, and that was the beginning of our goodbye.

Blog Stop Tour: The Necromancer’s Daughter

September 28, 2022Steven Baird 110 Comments

Fantasy writers are especially unique in that they imagine worlds — regalities and cultures and creatures — that never were, and then go ahead and build them, imbuing them with their own lively visions, and then spiking them with a bit of awfulness that we all recognize. Dragons? I’m not so sure they don’t exist. In the imagination of D. Wallace Peach, of course they do. And so do necromancers, but it’s a costly gift.

—

A healer and dabbler in the dark arts of life and death, Barus is as gnarled as an ancient tree. Forgotten in the chaos of the dying queen’s chamber, he spirits away her stillborn infant, and in a hovel at the meadow’s edge, he breathes life into the wisp of a child. He names her Aster for the lea’s white flowers. Raised as his daughter, she learns to heal death.

Then the day arrives when the widowed king, his own life nearing its end, defies the Red Order’s warning. He summons the necromancer’s daughter, his only heir, and for his boldness, he falls to an assassin’s blade.

While Barus hides from the Order’s soldiers, Aster leads their masters beyond the wall into the Forest of Silvern Cats, a land of dragons and barbarian tribes. She seeks her mother’s people, the powerful rulers of Blackrock, uncertain whether she will find sanctuary or face a gallows’ noose.

Unprepared for a world rife with danger, a world divided by those who practice magic and those who hunt them, she must choose whether to trust the one man offering her aid, the one man most likely to betray her—her enemy’s son.

A healer with the talent to unravel death, a child reborn, a father lusting for vengeance, and a son torn between justice, faith, and love. Caught in a chase spanning kingdoms, each must decide the nature of good and evil, the lengths they will go to survive, and what they are willing to lose.

From Chapter 5 – An excerpt

A wave of panic stilled Barus’s hand, the needs of an infant beyond his experience. The insanity of his choice forced him back a step. For a full day, he’d suffered from fatigue and fear, his mind as muddy as a spring puddle. What was he thinking? Did he believe, for a single moment, he possessed the knowledge or skill to raise a child?

He slumped onto the one chair Graeger had left intact when he’d first barged into Barus’s life. His head hung forward into his hands, and he shivered. If the land wasn’t trapped in the grip of winter, he could bury her body under the willow beside the boy. He could lower her into the ravine beside Olma’s bones so neither would rest alone. And while the thought comforted him, it made his heart ache with grinding loneliness.

Olma hadn’t abandoned him despite the tragedy of his birth. How could he choose otherwise?

If the land wasn’t trapped in the grip of winter, he could bury her body under the willow beside the boy.

He studied the baby’s exquisite face, her repose as tranquil as sleep, fingers curled, complexion and hair as white as the asters on the summer’s lea. On her deathbed, the queen had begged for her child’s life. He possessed the power to see her will done, and in the depths of his heart, he couldn’t deny her … or the infant. Or himself. Despite his fear, he’d fallen in love.

Meet the Author

A long-time reader, best-selling author D. Wallace Peach started writing later in life when years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books. She was instantly hooked.

In addition to fantasy books, Peach’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of the arts in her local community, organizing and publishing annual anthologies of Oregon prose, poetry, and photography.

Peach lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes.

—–

One of my favorite excerpts: “A cold bone-moon sailed across the treetops. Silvergreen leaves glimmered between the towering evergreens like fairy lanterns. For several hours, she walked beside him, and they resorted to quiet conversation. With dawn a long way off, they settled beneath a tent of bowed branches and huddled together for warmth. Aster sighed and fell asleep with renewed hope.” This is simply lovely.

Diana’s writing brings a certain elegance to all her characters, who feel lived-in and fully-realized — particularly Barus, whose kindness and simple humanity lifts this tale high. Diane’s descriptive prowess is enchanting as always, and “The Necromancer’s Daughter” is as magical and rewarding a read as you would expect from this gifted author.

Purchase Links:

Global Amazon Links:

US: https://www.amazon.com/Necromancers-Daughter-D-Wallace-Peach-ebook/dp/B0B92G7QZX

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Necromancers-Daughter-D-Wallace-Peach-ebook/dp/B0B92G7QZX

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Necromancers-Daughter-D-Wallace-Peach-ebook/dp/B0B92G7QZX

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Necromancers-Daughter-D-Wallace-Peach/dp/B0B9FY6YZJ

IN: https://www.amazon.in/Necromancers-Daughter-D-Wallace-Peach-ebook/dp/B0B92G7QZX

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Diana’s Sites:

Amazon Author’s Page: