Bradford Hughes sat down at his writing desk, placed his steaming cup of coffee on a stained beer coaster, switched on the lamp, cracked his knuckles, carefully selected a ballpoint pen from among his numerous writing utensils, and then focused his eyes on the blank sheet of paper in front of him. He knew what he had to do. Each fall for the past five years he had entered the short story contest held by The Progressive—a free local weekly newspaper that specialized in left-oriented articles and editorials, restaurant and movie reviews, and racy classified ads—and each year his entry had failed to place in the top five, that is, he had garnered neither monetary reward nor honorable mention. Bradford was galled by this failure and was teetering on the verge of auctorial despair. He had always felt he was a good writer. Indeed, whenever a friend read one of his stories, the friend always responded by saying something to the effect, “Gosh, what a great story!” or “You know, Brad, you’re really a good writer.” But Bradford had started to doubt his ability.
Then one day an idea occurred to him. Maybe it was not his ability as a writer that was the problem. Maybe it was the subject matter of his stories that turned the judges off. One of his entries had been about a homeless man who had murdered another homeless man in order to steal his winning lotto ticket. Could it be that the judges were biased against his stories because they contained such sensational goings-on? Then another thought popped into his head. A careful perusal of the winning stories from the past five years just might reveal what the judges were looking for.
After rifling through the waist-high stacks of back issues of The Progressive that werecluttering up his garage (he had always meant to recycle them, but had never gotten around to it), he had been able to locate the issues containing the last five first-prize-winning stories printed in their entirety. As he perused these gems of fiction, he gradually began to realize why his stories had never won. In his stories something always happened: there was an angry confrontation between co-workers, a heinous crime was committed, a steamy lovers’ tryst took place. But in the stories that always won first prize nothing happened—at least nothing interesting or exciting. The judges clearly preferred tales that involved subtle analyses of emotion or character, lengthy reminiscences, or poignant conversations between relatives or friends—in other words, stories that had no discernible plot. That was the challenge that Bradford now faced. He had to compose a story devoid of action, suspense, violence, situational irony, or sexual titillation. Can I do it? he wondered. He took a deep breath, set his pen to paper, and commenced his short story about nothing.
“She strolled along the beach, her sandals dangling from the fingers of one hand, her feet coated with the damp sand that marked the extent of the recent high tide. Even though the surf was retreating now as it rolled through its daily cycle of ebb and flow, an occasional wave would still wash over her feet and ankles and suck away at the footprints that trailed down the beach behind her as if the sea was intent upon washing away all traces of her passage. The tang of rotting seaweed was in her nostrils, and she could almost taste the salt in the sea air as she breathed. Beneath the shady brim of her straw hat, her eyes watched the late-morning sunlight coruscate on the crests of the waves just before they broke, crashed, and swept foaming up onto the sand.
“How often had she walked along this same stretch of beach with her late husband. She stopped for a moment to watch a group of small children building a sand castle, their bright faces intent as their hands pressed and molded the wet sand, the joy of creation transfiguring their untroubled visages. She and Dale had planned to have children as soon as they could afford it. She had wanted a little girl who she could go shopping with for pretty clothes, and Dale had never tired of talking about the son he would teach to play baseball and would take fishing in the flats and shallow bays along the coastline. That dream was dead now, murdered by a drunk driver who had raced through a red light and struck Dale’s car, killing him instantly. As she resumed her trek along the beach, she raised her free hand and wiped away a tear from the corner of each eye.
“Suddenly something hard struck her right between the shoulder blades, almost knocking her off balance. She whirled around just in time to see an orange Frisbee plop down in the sand. ‘Those damn kids!’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘I’ll make sure they don’t hit anyone else with this plastic menace.’ She bent over to pick up the disk, but just as her fingers closed on it, another hand grasped the other side of it. Keeping a firm grip on her half of the offending object, she straightened up, only to find herself gazing not at the face of a child but into the shockingly blue eyes of an Adonis. With his free hand he raked sun-bleached hair off his forehead, flashed a pearly smile at her, and then intoned, ‘Sorry about that. Jerry threw it over my head by accident.’ Her eyes drank in the muscular contours of his suntanned body, and she was suddenly aware that her heart was pounding like a bass—.”
“What the hell!” Brad exclaimed in horror. “Oh, no! Something happened.” The story had been flowing along just fine, nothing interesting happening, and then that damned Frisbee had ruined everything. I can forget that particular story line, he mused bitterly as he wadded up the sheet of paper he had been writing on and hurled it into the wastebasket. He took another sip of coffee, slowly exhaled a sigh of resignation, and then put his pen to a fresh sheet.
“He sat slumped over in his wheelchair, staring through the open slats of the Venetian blinds at the cars in the snow-covered parking lot. He wished he could still drive. But the arthritis in his knees and ankles had gotten so bad in the past few years that he could hardly walk, even using a walker to support himself. Most of the time he just rolled around in this damned wheelchair. He might still be able to slide in behind the steering wheel of the pretty red Ford pickup truck sitting out there, but he knew he would never be able to climb out of it by himself. Besides, he was not sure that he could depend on his right leg to operate the accelerator and brake pedal anymore. No, his driving days were over. Now he felt trapped in this wretched nursing home—the staff referred to it euphemistically as a ‘long-term care facility,’ but he knew it was just a damned nursing home, a place to lock up old folks who could not take care of themselves anymore until they died. He felt like a caged animal in a zoo.
“At least the animals in the zoo have people come to gawk at them everyday, he reflected sadly. I’m lucky if my son and daughter-in-law visit me once a week, and even then it’s like they’re fulfilling some sort of onerous duty, always glancing at their watches when they think I’m not looking. Sometimes I wish they’d just stay the hell away. Yet he knew he did not really mean that. The one bright spot in his miserable existence, the one thing he looked forward to with genuine anticipation, was seeing his granddaughter Missy every Sunday afternoon. Her radiant eyes, dimpled cheeks, and sweet smile never failed to lift him out of the morass of bodily suffering and emotional depression which was slowly stifling him.
“Suddenly he had the disconcerting sensation that someone was watching him. He wheeled the chair around towards the door. Outlined darkly against the well-lighted hallway was the figure of a man. ‘What do you want?’ he asked gruffly. The figure advanced into the room a couple of paces. It was a tall, haggard, elderly man wearing a black watch cap and a navy blue peacoat, a man that he did not recognize and yet who looked vaguely familiar. The man twisted his thin lips into a wry smile and said, ‘I guess you didn’t think you’d ever see me again, did you, Jake?’ As he gazed at the features of the mysterious visitor, it slowly dawned on him who the man was. He exclaimed in a voice that cracked with horrified disbelief, ‘It can’t be . . . I mean, you’re dead! You died forty years ago in Borneo!’ The visitor laughed sardonically and retorted, ‘You left me for dead, Jake, you and the others, but I didn’t die, you see. The natives nursed me back to health. Didn’t think of that possibility, did you? Well, it took me most of that forty years, but I was finally able to track you down, you lousy bastard. And now you’re gonna pay for what you did, just like the others paid.’ Although Jake was almost choked with shock and fear, he managed to stammer, ‘You-you-you’ve got it all wrong, Pete. We really thought you were a goner . . . I-I mean with that bullet hole in your—.’ ”
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Brad ejaculated as he threw down his pen in disgust. “I can’t believe it. Something happened again.” He shoved his chair away from the desk, stood up, and began to pace up and down the room, muttering imprecations under his breath the whole time. Finally, he exhaled another sigh of resignation, sat back down, and after a swallow of coffee—cold by now—he said out loud, “Oh, well, they say third time’s a charm.” He picked up the sheet of paper he had been writing on between thumb and index finger as if it were something filthy and gingerly deposited it in the wastebasket. Then he retrieved his pen and resumed writing.
“Robert Brower gently pushed the point of the hook through the squishy flesh of the worm at several points along its length, then drew the rod back and tossed the freshly baited hook as far as he could without upsetting the equilibrium of the row boat he was sitting in. Worm and hook plopped into the murky water, sending concentric rings rippling across the otherwise tranquil lake. Now he settled down to wait patiently for the red and white bobber to suddenly dip beneath the surface, the unmistakable signal that a finny denizen of the depths had found the earthworm delectable. Not that Robert really wanted to catch a fish, though. He went fishing mainly to sit and think about things without the irritating distractions that plagued him at home. As he observed the play of sunlight reflecting from the water around the bobber, his thoughts were busy with the surprising and unsettling request his eleven-year-old son Bob, Jr., had made at the dinner table the previous evening.
“Quite nonchalantly the boy had asked his mother and father to buy him a trumpet so that he could be in the school band next year. And not only had he asked for a trumpet, he had requested private trumpet lessons during the summer so that he would be ready to try out for the William McKinley Middle School band the week before school started. Robert had sat gaping at his wife Carolyn, a forkful of mashed potatoes poised halfway between his plate and his open mouth. Quickly apprehending her husband’s mute distress, Carolyn turned to Bob and pointed out in a voice that was almost preternaturally calm, ‘We’ve already scheduled you for baseball camp, soccer camp, and basketball camp, sweetheart. There might not be time for trumpet lessons.’ She paused a moment to let her tactful reminder sink in, then added, ‘Besides, we thought you were going to try out for the seventh grade football team the week before school started.’ Bob shoveled a load of meatloaf into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds, swallowed, and then said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘I think I’d rather play the trumpet.’ Robert lowered his laden fork to his plate and sat glancing in mute consternation from wife to child.
“Music? Where the hell had that idea come from? Neither Robert nor Carolyn played a musical instrument, and there was not a musical bone in the body of any relative, near or distant—except Carolyn’s great-aunt Gertrude, who played the organ in her church. But Bob had only met her once. It was highly unlikely, therefore, that she was the source of this wacky notion. Robert stared at the undisturbed red-and-white bobber, sighed deeply, and shook his head. Music was the last thing he had in mind for his son. He had always assumed that Bob would follow in his dad’s footsteps. When Robert had been Bob’s age, he had participated in every team sport available. He had played little league baseball during the summer, Pop Warner football during the fall, and YMCA basketball during the winter. Later on in high school, he had lettered in all three of those sports, and if it had not been for the fact that he had blown his knee out on the basketball court his senior year, he might have gotten an athletic scholarship to State U. At least he liked to think that he might have. And now that boy of his was going against the grain, rejecting everything his dad loved, indeed everything his dad stood for. How could he give up sports to blow on a damned horn? It made Robert’s stomach hurt just to think about it.
“Suddenly the bobber disappeared and the line went taut. Instinctively Robert jerked his hands up and back to set the hook. Immediately the graphite rod bent double and was almost ripped out of his grasp by an enormous tug from the murky depths. He had hooked big fish before, but he had never felt anything like this. He braced his feet and pulled with all his might. To his utter amazement the boat slowly began to glide across the lake. ‘My God, it’s gotta be General Beauregard!’ he exclaimed between clenched teeth. General Beauregard was a humongous catfish that, according to local legend, fed along the bottom of the deepest part of the lake. If he could land this monster, he would be a hero! There was even a five hundred dollar reward for anyone who could catch the General. As he strained every muscle to hang on to the rod, he could already see his photograph in the local—.”
Bradford Hughes gazed at the sheet of paper before him in complete stupefaction. For several seconds he was too stunned to even move. He just sat there staring at his third monumental failure of the day. Something had inexplicably happened again in a story that was supposed to be about nothing. It was just not possible! But there was the irrefutable evidence scribbled all over the sheet of paper in front of him in his own atrocious handwriting. It was crystal clear to him now that, try as he would, he simply could not write a story in which nothing interesting or exciting transpired—in other words, a story that had a ghost of a chance of winning The Progressive short story contest. Shaking his head in disgust, he stood up, threw his pen into the wastebasket, stalked out the front door of his town house, jumped in his car, and drove directly to his favorite coffee shop, the Writers Retreat, where he spent the next hour reading the current issue of The Progressive and crying into his latte.