Original Fiction -- "Shamrock Story"
Original Fiction
Title: Shamrock Story
Summary/Background: Some friends and I have started a summer writing group, and by Thursday we have to write a short story (1000 words max!) using the words Shamrock, killer, dice, and pallet/palate/palette. I just finished :) Meet Mary O'Donnell and Jeremy Colbert. Mary is from Ireland, and she can talk a lot, and Jeremy just hired her to help him cook for the St. Patrick's Day Art Walk in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Jeremy is a talented, innovative social photographer whose career is beginning to take off. The story is a scene in Jeremy's gallery just after the Art Walk ends. It is a defining moment for both of them.
Shamrock Story
Mary O’Donnell finished washing out the carafes that had been filled with green champaign for the St. Patrick’s Day Art Walk. Hours before, visitors to Jeremy Colbert’s new photo gallery had carefully balanced their plastic cups filled with the green champaign as they helped themselves to glazed corned beef and mashed potatoes with sour cream and scallions, piling the traditional Irish food onto the small plastic plates that matched their glasses. With food and drinks in hand, they perused the photographs Jeremy had spent a year taking as he drove across the country. They lingered and whispered, discussing the black and white images of biracial men, women, and children cooking, playing, in conversations, at work, all engaged in life. The photographs were hung in one row stretching evenly around the gallery walls. Each picture stood out against the otherwise white walls. On each picture Jeremy had superimposed text. He’d taken phrases directly from his black, leather-bound notebook where he kept notes about each person he interviewed. It is difficult to capture the essence of a person, but Jeremy tried. Each man, woman, and child had talked about what it meant to grow up biracial. Jeremy etched their words into the photographs. The L.A. Times called the project riveting, a pioneering exploration into biracial identity, and so now even on days without Art Walks, the gallery was filled with people.
Now the St. Patrick’s Day Art Walk, arguably the biggest yearly Art Walk in Park Slope, Brooklyn, had ended. People were crowding into neighborhood bars, drinking pitchers of green beer and listening to traditional fiddlers while playing Snooker or Cribbage or rolling dice in a game of Backgammon. Jeremy and Mary were cleaning up.
Mary had cooked the corned beef and potatoes. Her mother had cooked the same dishes for a wealthy family in Ireland, and she’d sneak home food for her children sometimes. Mary often went to work with her mother - it was where she learned to cook. Jeremy knew how to cook soul food. His mother would make chicken and dumplings once a week, and on holidays his grandfather would cook barbequed pigs feet. His palate adored pigs’ feet, but never got used to liver and onions, which often accompanied the meal. Jeremy knew nothing about Irish food, though. So he put an ad in the neighborhood paper: Wanted - Irish cook for Art Walk. Mary brought some homemade Irish bread to her interview, and Jeremy hired her. When she told him she’d recently gotten out of prison, he had hesitated, but did not change his mind. Being an ex-con made it difficult for Mary to find work. At Mary’s request Jeremy called her parole officer as a reference, who backed up his intuition that Mary was, essentially, trustworthy.
“Why were you in prison?” Jeremy asked her, as he cleaned, then straightened, a picture. The parole officer had not been allowed to say.
“I got reckless and killed my business partner. She was swindling money from me, and me and my kids were barely making it as it was. We were starting the business and I just got so mad she’d do that to my family, I got so afraid we wouldn’t make rent, that I lost it and shoved her. I didn’t mean for her to fall down the stairs and die. But that’s the way it happened I guess.” She looked down. The carafe she was drying, and the towel, shook slightly as her hands trembled. Jeremy stopped straightening a picture and turned to look at her. A green glow from the shamrock lights strung in the trees outside passed through the gallery window and settled onto the glass of the carafe Mary was holding. It shook as her hands shook.
“You’re not a true killer, Mary.”
“I killed someone. What she did was not right, but I still killed her. And that’s not right either.”
Jeremy offered her a chair to rest on for a moment, and he sat atop a short stepladder. Without thinking he started reaching for his black leather notebook, then caught himself, for this was not an interview. He loosened his tie and got himself and Mary a glass of water.
“You’ve got talent,” Mary observed as she took a sip of water and looked around the room.
“Do you know about photography?”
“The business Alice and I were starting was for wedding photography. We were just starting to make money. Before prison.” While nervousness did intersperse Mary’s speech, she had sound things to say. She scratched her head, took a sip of water, quickly put her glass on a table and wiped her mouth. “But prison wasn’t all bad.”
“What ways was it good?” Jeremy had interviewed a few ex-cons, and had an uncle in prison. He knew that not everyone was able to keep sane.
“I wrote to my children.” She looked down at the floor, smiling fondly as she scuffed her shoe softly against the polished wooden planks. “I wrote them poems and stories and letters. I wrote them adventure stories and space stories, and sketched them pictures sometimes too. I’d stay awake at night thinking of what to write. Prison wasn’t so bad that way.”
“Really?” Jeremy’s curiosity ignited. He shook his head in wonder as he recognized the artist sitting with him. “Do you still have those stories?”
“My daughter has them.”
“I want you to work for me.” He said this abruptly, because he often acted immediately on moments of clarity. “My business is growing and I need the help. I’d also like to photograph you with your stories.”
Mary looked up at the photographs already taken, and then to the talented photographer. She needed the work. “Yes. Thank you,” she answered. As she finished cleaning up and picked up her container of leftovers to take home, she looked again at the picture-stories hanging on the walls, and suddenly knew it’d be important to have her stories told, too.
Title: Shamrock Story
Summary/Background: Some friends and I have started a summer writing group, and by Thursday we have to write a short story (1000 words max!) using the words Shamrock, killer, dice, and pallet/palate/palette. I just finished :) Meet Mary O'Donnell and Jeremy Colbert. Mary is from Ireland, and she can talk a lot, and Jeremy just hired her to help him cook for the St. Patrick's Day Art Walk in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Jeremy is a talented, innovative social photographer whose career is beginning to take off. The story is a scene in Jeremy's gallery just after the Art Walk ends. It is a defining moment for both of them.
Shamrock Story
Mary O’Donnell finished washing out the carafes that had been filled with green champaign for the St. Patrick’s Day Art Walk. Hours before, visitors to Jeremy Colbert’s new photo gallery had carefully balanced their plastic cups filled with the green champaign as they helped themselves to glazed corned beef and mashed potatoes with sour cream and scallions, piling the traditional Irish food onto the small plastic plates that matched their glasses. With food and drinks in hand, they perused the photographs Jeremy had spent a year taking as he drove across the country. They lingered and whispered, discussing the black and white images of biracial men, women, and children cooking, playing, in conversations, at work, all engaged in life. The photographs were hung in one row stretching evenly around the gallery walls. Each picture stood out against the otherwise white walls. On each picture Jeremy had superimposed text. He’d taken phrases directly from his black, leather-bound notebook where he kept notes about each person he interviewed. It is difficult to capture the essence of a person, but Jeremy tried. Each man, woman, and child had talked about what it meant to grow up biracial. Jeremy etched their words into the photographs. The L.A. Times called the project riveting, a pioneering exploration into biracial identity, and so now even on days without Art Walks, the gallery was filled with people.
Now the St. Patrick’s Day Art Walk, arguably the biggest yearly Art Walk in Park Slope, Brooklyn, had ended. People were crowding into neighborhood bars, drinking pitchers of green beer and listening to traditional fiddlers while playing Snooker or Cribbage or rolling dice in a game of Backgammon. Jeremy and Mary were cleaning up.
Mary had cooked the corned beef and potatoes. Her mother had cooked the same dishes for a wealthy family in Ireland, and she’d sneak home food for her children sometimes. Mary often went to work with her mother - it was where she learned to cook. Jeremy knew how to cook soul food. His mother would make chicken and dumplings once a week, and on holidays his grandfather would cook barbequed pigs feet. His palate adored pigs’ feet, but never got used to liver and onions, which often accompanied the meal. Jeremy knew nothing about Irish food, though. So he put an ad in the neighborhood paper: Wanted - Irish cook for Art Walk. Mary brought some homemade Irish bread to her interview, and Jeremy hired her. When she told him she’d recently gotten out of prison, he had hesitated, but did not change his mind. Being an ex-con made it difficult for Mary to find work. At Mary’s request Jeremy called her parole officer as a reference, who backed up his intuition that Mary was, essentially, trustworthy.
“Why were you in prison?” Jeremy asked her, as he cleaned, then straightened, a picture. The parole officer had not been allowed to say.
“I got reckless and killed my business partner. She was swindling money from me, and me and my kids were barely making it as it was. We were starting the business and I just got so mad she’d do that to my family, I got so afraid we wouldn’t make rent, that I lost it and shoved her. I didn’t mean for her to fall down the stairs and die. But that’s the way it happened I guess.” She looked down. The carafe she was drying, and the towel, shook slightly as her hands trembled. Jeremy stopped straightening a picture and turned to look at her. A green glow from the shamrock lights strung in the trees outside passed through the gallery window and settled onto the glass of the carafe Mary was holding. It shook as her hands shook.
“You’re not a true killer, Mary.”
“I killed someone. What she did was not right, but I still killed her. And that’s not right either.”
Jeremy offered her a chair to rest on for a moment, and he sat atop a short stepladder. Without thinking he started reaching for his black leather notebook, then caught himself, for this was not an interview. He loosened his tie and got himself and Mary a glass of water.
“You’ve got talent,” Mary observed as she took a sip of water and looked around the room.
“Do you know about photography?”
“The business Alice and I were starting was for wedding photography. We were just starting to make money. Before prison.” While nervousness did intersperse Mary’s speech, she had sound things to say. She scratched her head, took a sip of water, quickly put her glass on a table and wiped her mouth. “But prison wasn’t all bad.”
“What ways was it good?” Jeremy had interviewed a few ex-cons, and had an uncle in prison. He knew that not everyone was able to keep sane.
“I wrote to my children.” She looked down at the floor, smiling fondly as she scuffed her shoe softly against the polished wooden planks. “I wrote them poems and stories and letters. I wrote them adventure stories and space stories, and sketched them pictures sometimes too. I’d stay awake at night thinking of what to write. Prison wasn’t so bad that way.”
“Really?” Jeremy’s curiosity ignited. He shook his head in wonder as he recognized the artist sitting with him. “Do you still have those stories?”
“My daughter has them.”
“I want you to work for me.” He said this abruptly, because he often acted immediately on moments of clarity. “My business is growing and I need the help. I’d also like to photograph you with your stories.”
Mary looked up at the photographs already taken, and then to the talented photographer. She needed the work. “Yes. Thank you,” she answered. As she finished cleaning up and picked up her container of leftovers to take home, she looked again at the picture-stories hanging on the walls, and suddenly knew it’d be important to have her stories told, too.