Thirteen

The idea for the book was to come up with a bunch of unconnected but fun short stories like in Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger because that was such a neat idea and had really cool stories in there. The only problem was that they were so utterly boring, so I needed to spice mine up a notch. It had a white cover with colored lines on the top left corner where is where I got the inspiration for my cover from, I remember it was in my kitchen and I saw it lying on the counter and picked it up. I then drew my cover on paper, photocopied it with a printer and emailed it to myself.

I want to give A special thanks to my editor Ben Way for helping me with the grammar in this book even if he didn’t really get the dark gallow humor style of it all. Back when The Kid was titled Simon I originally had it edited by another guy Leighton Wingate who I also need to credit. That’s it. But I did change the writing a bit to fit my voice more….

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ISBN: 9-798-35091-684-3

-Table of Contents-

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13:

The Silent Grocer

Noah

The Kid

Family Affairs

As Jack

Suffering = Comedy

American University

A Memorable Thing: A Story By Rigatoni

Putt, Putt, Golf!

‘Ol Summer Camp

The Irish Pub: Ale and Latkes Too

The Pool Room Café

My Father’s A Tree

THE SILENT GROCER

A grocer reads a contract on his bed with a heater beside him just so he can afford to lie down on a bed and take off his shoes at night. He reads through a sexual harassment form and the more he reads it, the more he’s frightened of it. He reads the consequences he might suffer if he disobeys the contract and dreads going back to work when he learns that employees that act inappropriately at work to women (not men), such as in a sexual or violent way, will be threatened with a lawsuit. He’s frightened of getting blamed for the suit and going to prison for it.

He is grossed out by bugs, sand, and gooey food, really grossed out by genital juice, and terrified of being blamed. The grocer states his current fears to his sister and what they are doing to him: If I get pointed at for being violent and titled as the sexual harassment guy, I can’t go on. I don’t know how to go on without the proper strength. It makes me feel weak and because I have a lack of social skills, I cannot afford to piss off my coworkers, you know?

Why are you telling me this? I’m your sister.

Just pppplease listen to what I have to say. And he goes on, I want people to like me. I’ve been alone for a while now and this is my first job. So, this matters to me.

What are you gonna do about it? You’re not gonna cry, are you? his sister says strictly.

He replies, No I’m not gonna cry, I’m gonna deal with this in baby steps.

She is surprised, Oh she replies. His sister looks at him as he walks out of the kitchen and closes the front door of the house.  He heads off to work and as he walks in, he realizes he forgot his apron and has to go back for it. He goes into the store to use the bathroom then leaves on his bike. He hops off his bike and opens the door to the house but can’t find his apron and is already late for work, so he goes to the laundry room to look for it. He thinks maybe his laundry got mixed in with his mother’s, so he goes upstairs into her room and sees the empty laundry basket lying on her bed. He opens her sock drawers to look for it. Underneath her clothing, in his mother’s sock drawer, he finds drugs and a pipe. As he’s about to put it back in the drawer, his sister walks in the room:

Whatchya, you got there?

It’s not mine, I found this pipe in moms’ drawer I swear.

Don’t worry I won’t tell. Give it to me. He hands it over to her.

What are ya gonna do with it?

Flush it down the toilet.

Okay (he says trustingly).

The Grocer closes the sock drawer and leaves the room in despair and leaves for work. Upon arrival, he locks up his bike and walks inside and decides to buy a pack of cigarettes. He decides to ditch work. He turns off his phone to avoid upcoming calls. He’s walking down the street and sees a homeless guy and asks him a question. After that, another question and then another. He does not want to go home; he is avoiding his mother. And before he knew it, he was having an actual conversation with somebody and just talking back and forth. He listens to the guy’s stories and a curiousness grows. When he gets home, he re-watches the conversation in his head and writes it all down. He thinks. Now well, what if I got these on video? Love doing ‘em. What if I could show my conversations with them to other people?

The next morning, he gets ready for work and eats breakfast fast and starts planning. He writes everything down- what he wants to do, and what he wants to say. He plans where he wants to go and draws a map of the city with streets and everything. From that, he figures out which bus he needs to take to get there. He packs a bag of things, gets dressed and digs through his dad’s old closet where there lies a trunk lying open and inside, a video camera to record and document the interviews. He goes onto the street and passes by a bunch of tents and goes into one of them and a guy comes out:

Can I help you?

"Yeah, I wanna ask you some questions (shows him a sheet of paper filled with questions).

Where you from? The university?

Yeah…you-dub he says awkwardly.

U-dub. Alright, no camera though.

No camera.

He turns it on but keeps it pointed at the floor. Want some food? I brought some, a whole bag.

No, I’m good. But thanks. As soon as he closes the food bag and starts putting it back into his pack, he hollers: Now wait, what you got there? Starts digging through the bag.

Chicken sandwiches and hotdogs mostly.

After the interview is over, the Grocer is uptown and passes another homeless guy. This one is black and in a wheelchair. Offers him food and asks him some questions and asks about the camera:

Is it alright if I video…

Yeah sure, go right ahead man.

"Hey um, ask me some of dem questions.

Um let’s see…

How did you become homeless?

Easy for him, the homeless guy goes on a rant/tells a story and all he has to do is point the camera towards him and keep on feeding him. The black fella holds the hotdog upright like a banana and nibbles on it. He goes through the list of questions.

After he says goodbye and lets him keep the bag. On his way back home, he spots a hippie sitting outside a Starbutts - (copyright) and gets out another bag of food and offers him some and asks him if it’s alright to video and all that. The hippie tells him his whole life story and for hours and hours and how he ended up on the street in the first place.

As the sun goes down and night comes near, he passes by a grocery store and bumps int a lady sitting on the ground selling flowers out front. As she speaks to him, her buddy puts flowers into old glass bottles people threw away. "Display only, they wouldn’t let me