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The Unforgotten (excerpt)

The Unforgotten copyright@2020 w. maguire “It aint right” the old woman said. “Young girl like that..her wedding night. Like to break my heart.” Sara nodded and sat down beside her. The beds had all been stripped and the laundry started and the old woman had stepped into an alley behind the laundry. She had smoked two packs of no filter Camels since she was 13 and her voice, rough as a gravel road, sometimes sounded like a cough when she spoke.  “All these rooms empty and them on a honeymoon. Just feels …dirty to me.” The old woman had spent her life cleaning other peoples sheets, bleaching them stark white and making beds, like laying in her sheets was the way to make up for all the dirt the city people did to each other. Sara watched as she took a drag. “Have you ever been in love?’ she asked. The old woman looked away. She began to speak but her voice caught. She wheezed and broke into a cough. “I don’t know. Maybe once.” “What does it feel like?” Sara asked. The old woman exhal...

A Hunger for the Sweet

 A Hunger for the Sweet copyright@2020 W. Maguire It's been a year since customers began arriving at Donut City before dawn each morning to buy dozens of donuts. One Monday, the shop sold out at 7:30—hours before its usual 2 p.m. closing time.  That week, regular customers had noticed that something was amiss. Every day for the past 28 years, the inseparable husband-and-wife team — Stella and John—Cambodian refugees, stood together behind the counter. But that month for the first time in decades Stella was absent. When customers asked, John quietly said she had suffered an aneurysm and had been hospitalized. John could not afford an employee. He could only see his wife after closing . . . or until that day's donut were sold out. Word spreads fast in a small town and there is still a hunger for sweetness in places where the bitterness is baked in. So soon friends and neighbors and then even strangers began to line up in the predawn dark, each waiting to order dozens of donut. P...

Air

      copyright@2020 will maguire  Last year one of my tires started going flat. A slow leak. As I began looking for a service station, I couldn't help but remember another time that I needed air. When I was kid I had a bike, the kind with really fat tires that were so old they were always leaking. Every week I had to stop by the nearby filling station to air them up. The old man that ran the place sat in the shade just outside the screen door. And each time, gravel in his voice, he would ask, “You ever going to buy something, son?” I’d shrug and say, “No sir. Got no money.” He would look hard at me, then, eyes softening, he’d say - “Well, that's all right, boy...air is still free.” Like everyone else these past few months I've been watching the slow roll of the COVID death toll. Five thousand, then ten, now an unimaginable 110,000. I’ve listened to doctors plead and wives cry out. I’ve heard strong men in hospital wards gasp for air through ma...

Getting Clean

Getting Clean copyright@2020 will maguire I go to church. I generally sit in the last pew, trying to turn my grievances into gratitude. I fail regularly. Last week this guy walked in wearing mechanic’s overalls covered with oil stains. His hands were blackened with grease. There is this large bowl at the entranceway full of water. Holy water. I think it must have been his first time because he hesitated as he passed it. He took a few steps, then turned back. He dipped both arms in up to the elbow and began scrubbing at the dirt and grease, like he figured washing his hands was a kind of prayer. Then cleansed, he rolled his sleeves down, found the girl he was going to meet and sat down. And I got that old feeling in the back of me that I was watching something larger than it appeared to be. In the early 80s I lived in New York City. That year a new and deadly virus, HIV, first made its way into Manhattan’s clubs and alleyways. Then in short order it climbed off the avenue...

Letter Home

Letter Home copyright@2020 will maguire The tornado, an ef3...160mph, tore thru my part of town then stayed on the ground for about 50 miles, heading east. I woke at 1am to the sound of tornado sirens and hail pinging off the roof. The wind was starting to yell...threats...like it sometimes does in spring, but I checked and saw no trees down. At about that time the funnel touched down and began crawling thru my neighborhood. Whole blocks of houses and businesses were leveled. Power is out over a wide area. My street however was spared. As it moved east it mowed down several towns...towns that really no longer exist. Erased in large part. In Oklahoma they sometimes call twisters the finger of God, as though he we're writing His name again and again in the dirt. I doubt that. Not His signature. Seems like a forgery to me. 25 dead so far, including some very young. Toddlers. The wind doesn't really check IDs when it starts spinning up on itself. Left a lot of nevers...

Chasing the Light

               Chasing the Light copyright@2020  will maguire Years ago—it was many lives ago—I worked nights in Manhattan. Some people call that grave shifting or paying dues. Others call it chasing the light. To stay awake I used to buy coffee at Smilers, the deli on 7th Ave in the Village. Usually around 3 am. Every night on a crate in front of Smilers sat an old black man. White hair, blind. I think he was mildly autistic. He rocked back and forth endlessly. Like Ray Charles caught in the groove. Next to the crate was a boom box, and a simple handwritten sign: Please.   All night he would rock back at forth quietly singing southern gospel songs along with his boom box tracks. And around him till dawn the night city swirled.   At 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 a.m. in the Village, 7th Avenue is full of souls searching the dark for things they could never hope to find in the light of day.  Night sh...