The Short of It: David Carpenter + Hello

For Short Story Month, one author will join us every Friday to answer five questions about their work and share an excerpt from their short story collection.

All Lit Up: Tell us about your collection in a few short sentences.

David Carpenter: A disabled widower seeks comfort in memory by getting in touch with his younger self. An old drunk, assisted by his own delusions, lays his ghosts to rest. A young child escapes her oppressive family by ministering to the needs of a monster in distress. A social reject acquires a new look and becomes consumed with the need for revenge against his early tormentors. A former social worker encourages a friendship with a paroled criminal. A cleaning woman in strained circumstances, determined to support herself and her child, feels compelled to make extreme choices. 

Some of my characters face the frailties that come with old age and loneliness. Others become vulnerable to their own compulsions and set in motion moral dilemmas. Many of these loners reach for their phones to send or receive a message that might deliver them from their isolation, but even though they hear “Hello” from the person they reach out to, there is no guarantee of deliverance. But there are moments of grace and even laughter to lighten their loads and fend off mortality.

ALU: How do you approach writing a short story—do you start with an image, a character, or something else?

David Carpenter: I carry a character or characters in my head for a long time before I put pen to paper. When I can put two characters in the same frame, listening to them talk, disagree, impinge on each other in various ways, this means that I feel a story coming on. My hope is that the characters can work things out and learn something about each other. They might be siblings, lovers, adversaries, or complete opposites, and they might also be from different cultures.

ALU: What do you love about the short story form?

David Carpenter: It allows a writer to drive towards a profound awakening in a dozen or so pages. The writer dives in, tells a story and gets out, and the reader senses that something momentous has happened.

ALU: Who are some of your favourite short story writers?

David Carpenter: Some of my favourite short story writers (in no particular order): James Joyce’s Dubliners, Flannery O’Connor, George Saunders, Ray Carver, Margaret Laurence, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Faulkner’s stories in Go Down, Moses, Annie Proulx.

ALU: What are three things on your writing desk/place of writing?

David Carpenter: On my writing desk there is the usual laptop and printer. There is also a portrait of Doc Watson, the celebrated guitarist from Deep Gap, North Carolina. And herein lies a story.  He went blind when he was a young boy on the farm. His father discovered him one day plucking a copper wire attached to the barn door. When he eased the door open the notes from the copper wire climbed up the scale, and when he pushed the other way, the notes went lower.  His father realized that the boy had music in him, so when their cat died he fixed the cat’s hide to a circular frame and made a 5-string banjo for his son. Doc mastered the banjo in short order, then turned to a mail-order guitar and several other instruments. He also learned to be a cabinet maker when he was still blind as a bat. I have fixed a note on Doc’s portrait that reads, “Do what you have to do.” Sometimes I gaze at this portrait when inspiration is lacking.  

At the poker table of life, Hardy Mudge had held very few aces, and Hardy being Hardy, he had not played them well. This time would be a little different, however, because this time he had really worked things out. His ace was the key to his old apartment, from which, two weeks ago, he had been evicted for no reason at all. The barracuda landlady had it in for Hardy from the day he moved there, and now he was sleeping on his friend Mumford’s lumpy chesterfield. Hardy had become obsessed with this caper, so much so that he had almost entirely quit boozing. He took his apartment key to a locksmith and had a copy made, then handed in the originals to Mrs. Barracuda.

            Nightfall. Hardy is surprised at how calm he has become. Duffle bag under his arm, he takes out his key and unlocks the apartment door. Hands shaking but not fumbling. His excuse is ready at the tip of his tongue. Sorry to bust in on ya, buddy. Plain forgot to give you this here key. No one at home. Grace of God or whatever. Much of the new tenant’s possessions were still stacked in piles all over the living room. Eeny meeny miny mo. 

            Hardy glides from pile to pile, top to bottom, silent as a cat in his wool socks. The joints in his feet are cracking. He smells the sweat from his nervous pits, begins to gulp the moldy air around him. Fifty-four is too old for this bullshit. He prays that the telephone will not ring, because if it rings and he doesn’t answer it, and people in the building hear him rummaging around, they’ll know something is up. He also prays that the new tenant will stay true to his plans for the weekend. Into the duffle bag goes a solid silver flute in a case, a wooden box full of cufflinks, an old pocket watch, a genuine abo-type boomerang, a piggybank stuffed with change, a nice new 1963 trophy for musical whatnot (sterling silver), a small strummy thing made from the shell of an armadillo (must be worth a few bucks), and a beautiful gold ring. The ring goes on Hardy’s middle finger, not a bad fit. There’s a big saxophone sitting up on a stand, bright as gold, but it won’t fit into the duffle bag. That’s showbiz.

            He can hear someone pacing in the apartment next door, and he is reminded of how thin the walls are in his former building.

            At last, there is nothing left small enough to filch. He zips up the duffle bag and has one final look around his recently abandoned flat. He pulls out some cushions from the new guy’s chesterfield and whadya know, like some treasure in a storybook, there lies a worn canvas pouch with a bank logo. Heavy as hell. Bulging with silver dollars. My my. He tiptoes over to his duffle bag and lays the pouch next to the phone. 

            Which rings.

            Holy Moses, shit. Hardy grabs the receiver.

            “Hello?”

            “Mr. Mudge,” says a lady with an English accent, “we are so pleased to hear your voice.”

            “You mean I’m still payin for this telephone?”

            “I’m not sure. Are you Mr. Hardy Mudge?”

Hardy now wonders why in hell he picked up the phone. So what if people in the building hear it ring? But Hardy has lived as a bachelor for many years now, and bachelors always answer their phones.

            “Yes, Ma’am, that’s me.”

            “You are a hard man to get hold of, Mr. Mudge. Could you speak up?”

            “I’m sorry, but I’m in a bit of a–”

            “You might want to sit down, Mr. Mudge. I have something momentous to tell you.”

            “Shoot.”

            “My name is Loey Binns, Mr. Mudge, and I am happy to announce that your ticket has been selected for the Sweeps. Furthermore, I–”

            “The sweeps,” he said.

            “The Irish Sweepstakes,” said the woman. “Mr. Mudge, you have won a very tidy–”

            “Is this some sorta–”

            Once more she cuts him off: “Mr. Mudge, there is one way to ascertain whether we are indeed legitimate. Simply bring your ticket to the nearest branch (it sounded like brunch) of the … Bank of Nova Sco-sher and they will (something something) … your winnings. Can you hear me?”

            He grabs for one of the tenant’s pens, she repeats her instructions, and he scribbles them down.

            “Thought you’d have a Irish accent or somethin.”

            “Don’t they all,” she said.

            He thanked the woman and realized that rivulets of sweat were rolling down into his eyes. His throat was tightening and everything from his lungs to his nostrils had gone drooly. 

            “Sounds like you enjoy your work, Miss.”

            “I do indeed, Mr. Mudge. And I hope you enjoy your winnings. Men like you contribute every year to a fine cause and (bla bla bla) … can we count on you to give some interviews, Mr. Mudge. Mr. Mudge, are you there?”

            Jesus but don’t this woman go on and on.

            “I’m here. Haven’t quite digested the news. How much did you say I won?”

            “I was leaving the amount to the last. Any guesses, Mr. Mudge?”

            “Not a clue.”

            “Your ticket on Whackfall to win, Mr. Mudge, has won you sixty-two thousand four hundred pounds. Rounded off.”

            “Holy mother a Christ.”

            “You are a lucky man, Mr. Mudge. Have you always thought of yourself as lucky?”

            “Not particularly. Say, what’s your name?”

            “I told you, Mr. Mudge. It’s Loey Binns.”

            “Loey, I don’t mind confiding in you, I mean, all my life I’ve had to scramble for a living. It’s like I’ve got this anvil over my head, see, and all I have to do is just get slightly out of line and down she comes to flatten me. I got this friend, Mumford, see, and he tells me that Mudge, that’s my last name, Mudge.”

            “I know, Mr. Mudge.”

            “Course you do. Course you do. Anyway, this buddy, he says that Mudge is the sound of a great big anvil fallin on my head from a hundred feet up. Not a word … not a word of a lie.”

            “There, there, Mr. Mudge, don’t worry. Don’t worry any more. And there’s nothing wrong with a good cry now and then. A good cry and a cup of tea. That’s what my mother used to say. There, there.”

            “You sound like a very sympathetic person, Loey. I don’t suppose you live over here, do you?”

            “Oh, no, Mr. Mudge. I’m on the other side. Over the bounding main.”

            “Too bad. I’d love to meet the lady who changed my life, and that’s no lie.”

            Suddenly Loey Binns is helpless with laughter. Not a mean-spirited laugh. It’s a gentle laugh. Nothing like his ex. Nothing like the women over here, they’d rather laugh at you than help you up from the gutter. But Hardy can not dismiss the thought that he and this Loey number have a connection.

            “Somebody should write your story, Mr. Mudge. It sounds fascinating. But I am going to bid you a fond farewell, and I hope your newfound luck follows you wherever you …”

            Loey Binns chatters away, what an absolute angel, but suddenly her words take root. Somebody should write his story.  It would end with Hardy returning almost everything he swiped from his old apartment. Or maybe it would end with a phone call to Ethel, the mother of his son. A tearful apology and then a visit to meet the kid. They’d throw the ball back and forth and the boy would come to know what Hardy was really like. The book writer would have to be somebody special … somebody who knows about hardship and struggle and how a man can stray and find his way back to the top again. And goddam it, Hardy Mudge, you are that somebody.