Debbie and I had been fighting all week long. She dragged me everywhere. We ate rubber shrimp at an over-priced restaurant with stone-age decor. We visited an authentic Seminole village where they sold authentic stuffed baby alligators. We paid twenty-five dollars apiece to watch a blonde ride a killer whale. And on the night before our last full day, we drove down to North Miami to visit Debbie’s grandmother.

“Be careful what you say,” Debbie warned me as we drove down A1A. “There’s only one thing worse than my parents finding out, and that’s my grandmother finding out.”

“It can’t be much worse than if your parents find out.”

“Oh yeah? If my parents find out from my grandmother, she’ll make them feel guilty, especially my mother.”

“Never approved of her, eh?” I asked.

“Something likes that. If my grandmother lays it on my parents, can you imagine how my parents will lay it on me? Not one, but two layers of guilt.”

“You mean three instead of two,” I mumbled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind,” I said. “I just don’t see why you make such a big deal out of it. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“I just don’t like walking around knowing that I’m lying to them.”

That way she had of constantly accusing herself always annoyed me. Her parents were difficult enough without her helping them along. “If you don’t tell them anything, you don’t have to lie.”

“They ask questions. What’s the matter with you? Don’t WASPS make their kids feel guilty?”

“Of course they do,” I laughed.

“How come you don’t show it?” Debbie chuckled and added, “I’m sure you have plenty to feel guilty about.”

I most certainly did. Just several weeks earlier, I had taken Debbie down to New York to meet my parents. My father didn’t say very much, but I knew what he was thinking. It was just one of the thousand ways he was disapointed in me. I had gotten past caring about it enough to even have a fight.

“WASPS work silently,” I said. “They don’t say a word and just let the guilt build up silently. Psychological warfare. That way they can’t be blamed for anything. We always cover our asses.”

“Not a bad idea,” Debbie said thoughtfully. Then she turned abruptly and said, “And don’t smoke, whatever you do.”

“Of course.”

Mrs. Sussman lived in a senior citizen’s condominium, inland from the coast on Miami Gardens Drive. Debbie had a little trouble remembering which twenty-five story building in the complex her grandmother lived in and it took some time for her to remember some old landmarks. We drove slowly around the man-made lake, around which the towers were built. Finally, something caught her eye. “There it is,” she said, pointing to one of the floodlit concrete structures. “They planted some new palm trees since I was last here.” They all looked the same to me.

We found a parking slot marked VISITORS, locked up the car and walked slowly toward the entrance. Debbie put her arm around my waist, sliding her hand down into my back pocket and whispered, “Don’t worry. Relax. I love you, you know.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, trying not to worry. With Debbie, however, worrying was a way of life. As we entered the lobby, I began breathing deeply, filling my lungs with the cool, purified air.

On the elevator ride up to the fourteenth floor, I grabbed Debbie, embracing and pressing her back into the wall of the elevator car, kissing her mouth powerfully and deeply. It was something we had always done during our first year together in the high-rise dormitory at school. Making love on an elevator, if you could call it that, had always been one of my more bizarre fantasies. The scintillating sense of danger was heightened by the fact that we were in Debbie’s grandmother’s elevator.

Suddenly we felt the elevator slow down and as always, I jumped away from Debbie and we composed ourselves, preparing our faces to feign innocence. The elevator stopped on the seventh floor and an elderly couple stepped inside. The man wore white shoes, plaid slacks, a polo shirt, and a golf cap. His wife, although she was on the heavy side, was an attractive woman in her late sixties, wearing a print skirt and a lavender blouse.

The man pressed nineteen and turned to me. He grimaced and said, “Who are you?” The skin under his chin flapped when he spoke.

I stuttered for a moment and then Debbie said, “We’re visiting Golda Sussman on fourteen.”

“Oh, you must be Debbie,” said the woman, smiling. “Your grandmother told me all about you and your brother.”

Debbie smiled nicely at the woman and then glanced at me as a warning to be pleasant.

“And who is this handsome young man?” her husband asked, giving me a smile. A small one.

“He’s a friend of mine from college.”

“Rob Dickinson,” I said shaking his hand.

The elevator slowed down and stopped at the fourteenth floor. We said goodbye and as we stepped off the elevator, the woman said, “Tell your grandmother that Rose and Milton send their regards and that she has a beautiful granddaughter.”

The door of Mrs. Sussman’s apartment opened and Debbie fell away from me into her grandmother’s arms. There were tears in her grandmother’s eyes as she said softly, “five years, five years.” Then Mrs. Sussman stepped back, composing herself, looking Debbie up and down. “See how you’ve grown up. You’re a young woman now. A beautiful young woman.”

The dinner table was to the right, just off the kitchen as we entered the living room, exquisitely set with silver and crystal. The entire room was decorated in off-white. Across the room was a velour apholstered couch and love seat positioned around a glass-topped coffee table. Beyond that was a terrace that overlooked the moonlit lake. Mrs. Sussman closed the glass door and switched on the air conditioning. Debbie introduced me and I shook Mrs. Sussman’s hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “You don’t have to wear that tie just for me. Take it off, make yourself comfortable.”

“It’s all right, it doesn’t bother me at all,” I lied. Debbie and I sat down on the couch, making sure we were at least six inches apart, and Mrs. Sussman took the loveseat. I sat back momentarily and felt a small pillow at the small of my back, which I suddenly had noticed was damp, so I crossed my legs and leaned forward, clasping my hands around my knee, trying to look comfortable. I glanced to my right and saw that Debbie had adopted almost the same position.

“Can I give either of you a drink?” Mrs. Sussman asked. “I have plenty of liquor in the house. I don’t drink it myself, but I like to have some in the house just in case.”

“No, thank you,” Debbie said.

“And you, Rob?”

“Oh no thank you, Ma’am.”

“Are you sure?”

Debbie and I both shook our heads earnestly. If Debbie had said yes, I would have also had a drink. Normally, Debbie would never turn down a drink before dinner. When she said no it was for a very good reason. I guess it was bad enough for her, bringing her goyisherboyfriend to her grandmother’s for dinner, she didn’t want to worry about what her grandmother would think if she saw the two of them drinking together. I decided that it would be best if I played along with her.

“Maybe you would like some soda,” Mrs. Sussman offered. “I have Cocoa-Cola.”

“No, thank you,” I said. I hate Coke.

“Are you sure? I went out and bought five bottles when I heard you were coming?”

“I’ll have some, Nanny,” Debbie said.

“You two stay right here and relax from your drive,” Mrs. Sussman said, getting up. “Are you sure you don’t want anything Rob?”

Following Debbie’s lead, I finally gave in and said, “I guess I’ll have a Coke.”

“I won’t be a minute,” Mrs. Sussman said as she scurried into the kitchen.

Debbie and I sat quietly in the living room listening to bottles open and ice cube trays cracking and soda fizzing. Just before Mrs. Sussman returned, Debbie leaned to me and whispered, “Don’t worry, she likes you. She thinks you’re adorable. I can tell.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Because I think you’re adorable and she always spoiled me.” Mrs. Sussman returned carrying a metal tray with two glasses of Coke. “They certainly look good,” I said, trying a little too hard, as I reached for the nearest glass. I took a sip and felt the syrup coating my teeth.

Debbie and Mrs. Sussman got involved in a long conversation about the family back in Bayside. Her older brother was finishing law school and was now applying to every law firm in the country. He had offers from Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, and Washington D.C. He was most likely going to take an offer from Great Neck, Long Island. Debbie’s younger brother was now a senior in High School. Mrs. Sussman was rather upset that he was only going to a community college, but Debbie calmed the woman by emphasizing that he was going to transfer after two years. Then, Mrs. Sussman asked Debbie what her plans were.

“I’m going to move back home and get a job downtown,” Debbie said.

“What was your major again,” Mrs. Sussman asked. “Accounting?”

“Marketing,” Debbie answered.

“Oh yes, that’s right. Well, you’ll do fine. Everything is in New York. And what are your plans, Rob?”

“I’ll be going to graduate school in Boston,” I said. I didn’t want to say too much right away so that I could gauge her reaction.

Mrs. Sussman’s face lit up and she said, “Oh you’re getting and MBA. How marvelous.”

“It’s not an MBA, Nanny,” Debbie said.

“Oh.”

I’m getting a PhD in Classics,” I said, enjoying the disappointed look on her face.

“Rob has an assistantship, Nanny,” Debbie said. “They’re going to pay him to go to school.”

“What will you do after that?”

“Probably teach college,” I said. “My specialty is Latin poetry.”

“I see,” Mrs. Sussman said, looking down and straightening her skirt. For some reason, upsetting the women’s material sensibilities made me feel more in control, more independent. Being looked down upon has always given me a feeling of defiance. When people look down on you and think that their opinion means something to you when it really doesn’t, you can privately place yourself above them. The least it can do is save your self respect. In any event, Mrs. Sussman’s opinion of me was now permanently fixed.

For dinner, we ate pot roast (Debbie’s favorite meal as a child) with mashed potatoes, string beans, creamed corn, dinner rolls and rye bread. Mrs. Sussman also served an extremely sweet sparkling wine, which she called “champagne.” She kept filling my glass, telling me to tell her when I had enough because I still had to drive that night. I kept telling her I had enough, but she kept filling my glass anyway. Actually, I could drink that wine all night long and not get drunk. I might get cavities, but I wouldn’t get drunk.

Mrs. Sussman also forced on us second and third portions of everything else, which was actually very good. The pot roast was tender, the strung beans were not over cooked, and the rolls were freshly baked. After we finished, I tried to help Debbie and her grandmother clear the table, but I just seemed to get in the way. Afterwards, Mrs. Sussman brewed a pot of coffee and pulled a huge cherry cheesecake out of the refrigerator.

We sat back down at the table and Mrs. Sussman poured the coffee. I managed to convince her that I only want a very small piece of cake. “The coffee is very good,” I said.

“Thank you. You can have as much as you want. And as much cake too.”

We spoke for another half hour about college, the city of Albany and Debbie told Mrs. Sussman about her old friends from Bayside. Mrs. Sussman had a very good memory and could talk all about Debbie’s junior high school friends and their families. Finally, Debbie diplomatically said, “It’s getting late and Rob still has to drive us back to Pompano.” She looked at me and winked.

At the door, Debbie and her grandmother embraced and rocked back and forth. “Don’t wait so long next time. Any time you want to come down, just call me, I’ll send you a ticket.” Then it was my turn. “It was very nice meeting you, Rob. Good luck to you.” She hugged me and kissed my cheek while I obligingly kissed the air next to hers.

In the hallway, Debbie breathed a sigh of relief as we heard the door close behind us. In the elevator, I pressed Debbie into the back wall of the elevator, her thigh between mine, and kissed her mouth deeply. Then I held her tightly as I kissed the side her neck and my hand slid down her back and into her slacks.

Read the rest…

A Couple, Smashwords Edition.

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See larger image A Couple (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $0.99 USD Release date January 29, 2011.

© 2012, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

Reviews:

“These three separate stories about neighbors Johnny and Miriam growing up in the 1960s and 70s make for a moving and elegant novella. I very much enjoyed the directness and strength of the prose which has its own bleak beauty, and the push and pull of relationships and family was very well portrayed indeed. The ending is perfect too. Highly recommended.” *****

-Anne Brooke (Amazon)

“This collection has two lovely tales of growing up in Port Jefferson, New York, plus a remarkable story of complicated love — sexual and familial — amid scenes of poverty and emotional desolation. Bubbers has a fine, almost photographic sense of place and time, and a great talent at capturing the texture of life. The final story which gives its name to this collection, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” ranks with some of the best short fiction written today.” *****

Eugene Mirabelli (Smashwords)

Excerpt…

Brothers (Part 1)

When I was a boy, my father was a pressman who worked nights at a daily newspaper on Long Island. Although he worked those unconventional hours, both he and my mother did their best to keep us on a normal schedule. He left the house at 10:30 PM, after my brother and I had been put to bed, and returned home in the morning just in time to see us off to school. When my mother met us at the bus stop in the afternoon, she would always remind us that Daddy was sleeping so we should be quiet when we got home.

“Remember, Daddy is sleeping,” she would say again on the front porch, just before she opened the front door. We slipped off our shoes and stepped onto the hardwood floor in on the foyer of our house in our stocking feet. We looked up the steps and could see that the door to my parent’s bedroom was closed.

I could not contain all my energy after a day at school. Sometimes my feet would hit the steps too hard and fast and my older brother, who was behind me, would grab my belt to pull me back to slow me down. He’d solemnly put his finger across his lips.

Quietly, we slipped into our bedroom and changed into our play clothes. Our house was small and my brother and I had to share a small room next to my parents. He was two years older than me, so he got to sleep on the top bunk. After we had changed into our blue jeans, we went back down the hall stairs, sneakers in hand, and into the kitchen to see what snack my grandmother had prepared for us that that day.

She was a slight, stoop shouldered old woman who knitted and cooked and baked for us forever. My grandfather had died the same year my parents were married. My father was in the army at the time and there was no money and no time for my parents to find a place to live, so they had moved into my grandmother’s house in Queens. When my father shipped out to Korea, my mother kept my grandmother company and learned to cook all his favorite meals.

Now she lived with us in Port Jefferson, in a room on the first floor of our house. She shared the household chores with my mother, but specialized in baking wonderful breads and pastries. My favorites were the horn-shaped puffy shells filled with whipped cream.

Sometimes we would have small little cakes with nuts and raisins that my grandmother had made that day; she called them “Yeast Cakes.” Other times it might be vegetable soup or even her special pancakes, paper thin and made only with eggs, milk, and flour, and filled with apples or peaches. While we ate our snacks at the kitchen table, my mother would ask us how school was that day. Tommy, my brother, spoke first, telling her about his math quizzes and how many runs he scored at recess. Then she turned to me.

“And how was your day today, Johnny?”

Whenever Tommy had spoken first, I always struggled to make my story compete with his. Tommy had always been a straight ‘A’ student. He always got placed in classes with the smarter kids. I, however, struggled along in the middle rankings. I couldn’t read as well or add and subtract as well as Tommy had at my age.

After finishing our snacks, we put on our sneakers and left the house through the back door in the kitchen. Most often, we would ride our bikes and my mother would tell my brother to bring me along with him when he rode up the street to visit his friend Mark.

“Do I have to?”

“He’s your brother,” my mother would remind him.

“Oh all right,” he would say, hurting me with his reluctance. Then he would smile and say, “Ok squirt, I’ll race you to the corner,” and off we would go.

Mark and his family lived two blocks up the street. He had an older brother and sister, Ben and Sara, who were teenagers, and a younger sister, Miriam, who was my age. They lived in a much larger house than ours with a huge lawn in front that was perfect for playing touch football. When Ben and Sara and some of their friends were around, we played during good weather. Actually, the older kids played. Being too small to run and catch and throw with them, Miriam and I squared off at the line of scrimmage. We counted Mississippi’s until it was time for us to awkwardly wrestle each other, one of us trying to reach the quarterback, the other trying to block.

Mark’s family had a rec room in their basement. There was a ping-pong table, an old worn out couch from their grandmother’s old apartment in Brooklyn, and a portable stereo record player. It was a cabinet the size of a small suitcase and the turntable opened out and folded down from the cabinet-like a shelf. On rainy days, Mark, Tommy, Miriam and I would have ping-pong tournaments and put a stack of Ben and Sara’s Beatle records on the stereo. Miriam was a pretty good friend to me, almost as good as another boy, but whenever they played the song “She Loves You,” she would sing along and smile at me.

When Mark’s mother called them up to dinner, we knew that it was time for Tommy and me to climb aboard our bikes and head home.

Sometimes, as we road our bikes slowly home on the darkening street, Tommy would tease me about Miriam.

“Johnny’s got a girlfriend,” he would yell at the top of his lungs, for the entire world to hear.

“I do not!” I would shout back.

“Johnny and Miriam, sitting in a tree,” he would shout.

“Shut up!” I would scream and try to run my bike into his. Then he would rise up on his peddles and race up the street, singing “K-I S-S-I-N-G.” I would chase after him as fast as I could, but I was always smaller than him.

Once I caught up with him just as he was putting his bike in the shed in our back yard. I slammed into him as hard as I could. Tommy fell backwards onto the grass and I flew over my handlebars. I scrambled off of the tangled pile of bicycles and threw myself onto Tommy’s chest.

“Take it back,” I screamed, “Take it back!”

He laughed at me. I started flailing my arms, trying to punch him, but first he covered his face and then he grabbed my wrists.

“Take it back,” I screamed.

Just then, I felt my sweatshirt tighten and bunch up in back, as my father lifted me off Tommy.

“Stop it, both of you,” he yelled as he set me down on the ground next to Tommy. “What are you fighting about?” he asked.

I was too embarrassed to say what it was. “Nothing,” I said meekly.

“It didn’t sound like nothing,” he said sternly. “Both of you put your bicycles away and get cleaned up for dinner. And I don’t want to hear another peep out of you.”

Silently we both picked up our bicycles and wheeled them into the shed. We slowly walked across the yard to the house. It was dark and the light coming from the open kitchen window was bright, casting giant shadows behind us. The radio was on, reporting more dead in Vietnam. “I’m sorry, Johnny,” my brother whispered. “Friends?”

Through the kitchen window, I saw my mother and grandmother setting the table for dinner. My father sat at the table with his glasses on, reading the newspaper. My cheeks were burning from anger and the furious ride home. The knees of my jeans were damp with grass stains. “All right,” I muttered.

Seething, I pushed past Tommy through the door and into the light of my mother’s kitchen.

Read the rest of this novella:

Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Amazon Kindle Edition:

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© 2012, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

“After the fire, the fire still burns, the heart grows older but never ever learns. The memories smolder and the soul always yearns. After the fire, the fire still burns.”

- Pete Townshend

Excerpt…

If he remembers me after these many years, it surely isn’t as an individual, but as of a type. What a sight I must have been. The mussed wavy blond hair, the scruffy beard. The black polo shirt and jeans. The brown corduroy jacket, a worn and tattered copy of “Leaves of Grass” bulging out of one side pocket, Nick Carraway’s meditation on life, passion and the American dream peering out of the other. The future rock star of American letters, radiating passion, joy, and heartbreaking charm to any lovely young thing who might be seduced. Few were.

He himself was a man of letters, a published author of three novels of good critical reputation, but little financial reward. His voice had been silent for many years and he had settled into teaching American literature and creative writing to the small group of budding young Fitzgeralds, O’Connors, Whartons, and Salingers who sailed in and out of the Humanities building of the university every year.

The first time I met him was during the spring semester of my junior year. I was applying for a seat in his fall section “Writing Prose Fiction.” I had already taken several writing courses, but this one was different. This was the senior level creative writing class offered by the English Department, taught by a published novelist. Registration for the class required his approval and a writing sample was required. A few days earlier, I had agonized over my meager portfolio of writing: personal narratives, stories and fragments of stories produced over the previous two years. For a person whose goal in life was to become a writer, I had produced very little that I could be proud of. Friends complimented my work, but it had always seemed to me that they were complimenting what I wanted my writing to be, not what it actually was. “Don’t submit anything too long,” an acquaintance who had taken this class advised me. “He gets a lot of people handing him things to read so keep it short.” Short was good because short was all I had. Finally, after agonizing over the selection, I chose a three-page interior monologue I had written earlier that year: a young man waiting for his girlfriend in a coffee shop, his mind racing from thought to thought, fear to fear, as to why she might be late.

Acceptance into this professor’s writing class would be, for me, a validation of my talent. It would tell me that yes, I did have talent and that the writing life was a worthwhile pursuit. What I didn’t understand at the time, was that competition for admission to the class wasn’t all that tough and that the writing sample was merely to assure the professor that the applicant had a rudimentary ability to put both nouns and verbs in most of their sentences.

When I had stopped by his office a few days earlier to give him my sample, he was not there. A file folder was taped to the office door, labeled “Fall Writing Prose Fiction – samples.” I pulled my story out of the folder in my hand, glanced over the first page, and slid it into the folder on the door.

The next day, I went back to his office and found the door was again locked. It was late afternoon and the hallway on the third floor was deserted. There was a pale gray light coming in through the skylight above the waiting area outside his office. I took a quick look around to make sure that no one was coming and pulled open the folder on the door. My manuscript was still there, along with some others that had been pushed in after it. That sleepless night I had spent worrying about what the professor thought about my writing, and more importantly, me, had been all for nothing. He hadn’t even read it yet.

On the day after that, The Professor was still not in his office but the folder on his door had been emptied. My future was being decided.

On the fourth day, as I was walking up the hallway toward his office, I could see that the door was still closed. This time, however, there was a young lady sitting in the reception area.

As I approached his office, she looked up at me and said, “Hi, are you here to see him?” gesturing at the office door.

“Yes”.

“He told me he would be here at three o’clock.”

I looked at my watch; it was 3:05.

“He should be here soon,” she said, smiling.

I slid my backpack down off my shoulder and set it on the floor.

“You must be applying for the writing class,” she said.

“How can you tell?”

“You have that look,” she replied. “And a folder with manuscripts in your hand”.

I smiled and her and said, “Oh I guess I look a bit typical. Actually, I left my writing sample a few days ago and I’m waiting to find out if I’ve been accepted.”

I sat down next to her and asked, “Are you applying for the class?”

“Oh no, I’m here for something else,” she said mysteriously.

“Oh”.

There was an awkward silence and I started looking this way and that, trying to avoid looking at her. My mind was on my story, what The Professor, who had most likely read it by now, thought of it, and my future as a writer.

“May I read some of your writing?”

The question unnerved me. No one had ever actually askedto read my writing. Usually, I would thrust it into their hands and they would be forced to politely indulge me.

I opened my folder and started fumbling through the manuscripts, not sure which one to give her.

“Do you have a copy of the one you submitted?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“How about that one then, since you picked it out to be your best.”

I pulled the extra copy I had of my interior monologue out of my folder and handed it to her.

Sitting next to someone who’s reading your work is even more stressful than thinking about someone you can’t see reading your work. To settle my mind down, I stopped thinking about the class, how embarrassingly bad my writing actually was, and just focused on the young woman sitting next to me. Up until now, all I had been able to think about was what The Professor had thought of my story. I hadn’t really paid much attention to this young woman who was now reading my story.

She was quite attractive. She had long brown hair, parted in the middle, and brushed back and feathered in that popular style of the late seventies. She wore oval shaped silver rimmed eyeglasses that were only partially obscured her large blue eyes. She was not dressed like a student, but in a well tailored, or at least well-tailored to my twenty-one year old eyes, business suit, the hem of her skirt modestly reaching below her knees. She looked like she had a grownup job. I thought she might be one of the professor’s graduate students who held a job out in the real world. “Are you one of his graduate students?” I asked.

She emitted a barely audible chuckle and she moved her head slightly from side to side as she quietly said “No.” Her eyes never lost focus on what she was reading and she appeared to be concentrating very intently, almost as if she were looking through the pages in her hand.

When she got to the end, a smile crept across her face. “That’s very good,” she said. Looking at the top of the first page for my name, she added “Frederick.”

“Oh, it’s Fred. Just Fred.”

“Well it’s very good. Thank you for letting me read it, Fred.”

Just then, I heard the squeak of rubber soled shoes walking up the hallway. I recognized the man walking toward us. Over the previous two and a half years, I had passed by him in the hallway and entered classrooms that he had been leaving. He was a slight figured man. He wore a tan sport jacket and dark gray slacks. He was bald but still with some dark hair on the side of his head, showing only a few flecks of gray. He had that bald appearance that allows a man to appear to be of indeterminate age from the time he’s thirty-five to the time he’s sixty-five. He smiled and nodded at the Mystery-Woman next to me and then looked at me.

“And you are?” he asked.

“Fred Bubbers.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Bubbers”, he said, grinning.

He pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket and approached his office door.

“If you just give me a moment, I can give you back your story and the registration card for the class. You don’t mind if I take care of this first?” he asked looking over his shoulder at Mystery-Woman.

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she answered.

He opened the door of his office and said, “Step inside, Mr. Bubbers.”

It was the first time in my life that anyone had ever called me “Mr.” Well, my parents and other teachers had called me that, but when they said it, it meant that I was in trouble. This, however, sounded polite and respectful. It made me nervous.

I stepped into his office and he followed me in closing the door behind him. Whatever he had to say to me, it was going to be in private.

He walked around to the other side of his desk and switched on the green porcelain library lamp on his desk. He set his brief case on the top of his desk and opened it. “I have your story here,” he said, pulling out a stack of papers from the briefcase. “Yes, here it is.” He reached down to his desk drawer and pulled it open. “The registration cards are in here.” He pulled one of the white cards out of his drawer, placed it on top of my manuscript and held them out to me across the desk.

“Thank you,” I said taking my manuscript and the registration card from him.

“Welcome to writing prose fiction, Mr. Bubbers, I’m looking forward to next fall’s section. We have some fine writers.”

He didn’t seem to indicate in manner, gesture, or tone of voice whether he considered me one of those “fine writers.”

I placed the manuscript into my folder and looked up expectantly at him. He had a kind, friendly face, but also a kind of reserved and distant quality about his look. His eyes seemed tired, world-weary.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Bubbers?”

“Well,” I stammered. “About my story.”

“Oh your story!” he interrupted. “That was just fine, Mr. Bubbers, just fine.”

“Fine?” I asked myself. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Maybe it was my look. Or maybe it was his experience with my type, semester after semester, year after year, coming to him for some kind of validation. He would never give us what we were seeking; he would only give us what we needed. And he would be damned cryptic about it.

“Mr. Bubbers, you shouldn’t get yourself worked up over a simple short story. Write them, finish them, and get on to the next thing.”

He stepped around his desk, reaching for the door. As he pulled it open he said, “Have a fine summer, enjoy yourself, and I’ll see you next fall.” He smiled a mischievous, conspiratorial smile and his tired eyes locked on mine.

I was ushered out of his office. As I walked past Mystery-Woman, still seated outside, she smiled up at me and said, “Congratulations, Fred.”

I’m not sure whether I answered her or not. I don’t remember if she told me her name that day. The only thing I remember from the rest of that day was bursting out the door of the Humanities building into the bright warm sun and devouring the clear, crisp air of the early spring afternoon.

Read the rest of this essay:

After the Fire: A Personal Essay, Smashwords Edition.

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• Diesel Books
• Apple’s iBookstore (accessible from your iPad or iPhone).

© 2011 – 2012, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

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Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Three stories about two neighbors who meet as young children and grow up together on Long Island during the late 60′s and early 70′s. The comforting and loving world they live in changes around them as their families fracture, society descends into chaos, and a war rages on. In the aftermath, they left on a wrecked, smoking landscape, searching for a new way to live when all of the sign have been burned down.

Reviews:

“These three separate stories about neighbors Johnny and Miriam growing up in the 1960s and 70s make for a moving and elegant novella. I very much enjoyed the directness and strength of the prose which has its own bleak beauty, and the push and pull of relationships and family was very well portrayed indeed. The ending is perfect too. Highly recommended.” *****

-Anne Brooke(Amazon)

“This collection has two lovely tales of growing up in Port Jefferson, New York, plus a remarkable story of complicated love — sexual and familial — amid scenes of poverty and emotional desolation. Bubbers has a fine, almost photographic sense of place and time, and a great talent at capturing the texture of life. The final story which gives its name to this collection, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” ranks with some of the best short fiction written today.” *****

Eugene Mirabelli(Amazon)

Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Smashwords Edition.

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Natural Selection

A corporate manager is on the verge losing it all. Office politics, a growing drinking problem, estrangement from his family, and a looming layoff are pushing him to the edge of a personal abyss.

I wrote about how this story came to be in “Into The Abyss.”

Natural Selection, Smashwords Edition.

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A Couple

Rob and Debbie are spending their last spring break in Florida. Graduation is looming and they face an uncertain future. Family expectations, peer pressure, and their own hearts are driving them apart. I wrote about this genre of story in my post Doomed Couples.

A Couple, Smashwords Edition.

Bonnifer

A short story about a married office worker struggling with temptation and desire while flirting with an older woman on a sultry summer evening in Greenwich Village.

Bonnifer, Smashwords Edition.

After the Fire: A Personal Essay

My memoir about a writing workshop and the teacher whose lessons on the art of fiction and the art of living continue to teach and inspire me, thirty years later. There’s some back-story about how this essay came to be written in my post eBook Week, Meta-Memoir.

After the Fire: A Personal Essay, Smashwords Edition.

© 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

Reviews:

“These three separate stories about neighbors Johnny and Miriam growing up in the 1960s and 70s make for a moving and elegant novella. I very much enjoyed the directness and strength of the prose which has its own bleak beauty, and the push and pull of relationships and family was very well portrayed indeed. The ending is perfect too. Highly recommended.” ***** Anne Brooke (Amazon)

“This collection has two lovely tales of growing up in Port Jefferson, New York, plus a remarkable story of complicated love — sexual and familial — amid scenes of poverty and emotional desolation. Bubbers has a fine, almost photographic sense of place and time, and a great talent at capturing the texture of life. The final story which gives its name to this collection, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” ranks with some of the best short fiction written today.” ***** Eugene Mirabelli (Smashwords)

Available now at Smashwords.com (use coupon code MJ87Z for 100% discount until June 6, 2011).

See larger image Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $1.99 USD Release date February 6, 2011.

© 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

My short story “Natural Selection” has been released as an eBook at Amazon.com.  This story has previously been available at Smashwords.com and other retailers (see my eBook Store Page), but this is the first time it is available at Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer. Kindle books can obviously be read on their Kindle dedicated device, but Amazon has also provided reading software for PC’s,  Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Android smartphones.

As for the story itself, I must credit the magazine that originally published it, Cantaraville.  I’ve written several blog posts about the story already (Into The Abyss, Natural Selection), so I’ll refrain from writing anything more.  As a general rule, the number of words an author writes about a story should never exceed the number of words in the story.

In the near future, I’ll be offering additional titles at Amazon.

See larger image Natural Selection (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $0.99 USD Release date January 25, 2011.

© 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

My titles are available for free using coupon code SW100. (Valid now through July 31, 2010).

© 2010 – 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

In the coming weeks, this mini-eBook, along with the others, will also be available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Apple Bookstore, Kobo, and Sony.  The folks at Smashwords have been working their butts off implementing all of the distribution deals that they have been put in place.  Given the fragmentation of the eBook market that currently exists, where the retailers each have their own formatting requirements (unlike the world of print publishing), Smashwords is solving a real problem in bridging the technology gap and helping authors reach as many readers as possible.  It’s exciting to watch and to be a small part of Smashword’s quest.

© 2010 – 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

A coworker got his iPad this weekend, so I checked out what my eBooks look like on it.  I’m very impressed and eBooks may end up being the killer app for the iPad.

© 2010 – 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.

A selection of my previously published stories and essays are now available as eBooks through several different sales channels.  The the books can be purchased and downloaded directly in multiple formats from Smashwords.com as well as from the following online retailers:

• Diesel eBooks
• Sony
• Barnes & Noble
• Apple iBooks
• Amazon

It’s a simple exchange of values. You give them money, they give you an eBook. 

Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Three stories about two neighbors who meet as young children and grow up together on Long Island during the late 60′s and early 70′s. The comforting and loving world they live in changes around them as their families fracture, society descends into chaos, and a war rages on. In the aftermath, they left on a wrecked, smoking landscape, searching for a new way to live when all of the sign have been burned down.

Reviews:

“These three separate stories about neighbors Johnny and Miriam growing up in the 1960s and 70s make for a moving and elegant novella. I very much enjoyed the directness and strength of the prose which has its own bleak beauty, and the push and pull of relationships and family was very well portrayed indeed. The ending is perfect too. Highly recommended.” *****

-Anne Brooke (Amazon)

“This collection has two lovely tales of growing up in Port Jefferson, New York, plus a remarkable story of complicated love — sexual and familial — amid scenes of poverty and emotional desolation. Bubbers has a fine, almost photographic sense of place and time, and a great talent at capturing the texture of life. The final story which gives its name to this collection, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” ranks with some of the best short fiction written today.” *****

Eugene Mirabelli (Smashwords)

Read an excerpt.

Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Smashwords Edition.

Also available from:

• Sony
• Diesel eBooks,
• Barnes & Noble
• Apple’s iBookstore (accessible from your iPad or iPhone).

Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Amazon Kindle Edition:

See larger image Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $1.99 USD Release date February 6, 2011.

Natural Selection

A corporate manager is on the verge losing it all. Office politics, a growing drinking problem, estrangement from his family, and a looming layoff are pushing him to the edge of a personal abyss.

I wrote about how this story came to be in “Into The Abyss.”

Read an excerpt.

Natural Selection, Smashwords Edition.

Also available from:

• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Diesel Books
• Apple’s iBookstore (accessible from your iPad or iPhone).

Amazon Kindle Edition:

See larger image Natural Selection (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $0.99 USD Release date January 25, 2011.

A Couple

Rob and Debbie are spending their last spring break in Florida. Graduation is looming and they face an uncertain future. Family expectations, peer pressure, and their own hearts are driving them apart.  I wrote about this genre of story in my post Doomed Couples.

Read an excerpt.

A Couple, Smashwords Edition.

Also available from:

• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Diesel Books
• Apple’s iBookstore (accessible from your iPad or iPhone).

Amazon Kindle Edition:

See larger image A Couple (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $0.99 USD Release date January 29, 2011.

Bonnifer

A short story about a married office worker struggling with temptation and desire while flirting with an older woman on a sultry summer evening in Greenwich Village.

Bonnifer, Smashwords Edition.

Also available from:

• Barnes & Noble,
• Sony
• Diesel Books
• Apple’s iBookstore (accessible from your iPad or iPhone).

Amazon Kindle Edition:

See larger image Bonnifer (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $0.99 USD Release date January 30, 2011.

After the Fire: A Personal Essay

My memoir about a writing workshop and the teacher whose lessons on the art of fiction and the art of living continue to teach and inspire me, thirty years later.  There’s some back-story about how this essay came to be written in my post eBook Week, Meta-Memoir.

Read an excerpt.

After the Fire: A Personal Essay, Smashwords Edition.

Also available from:

• Barnes & Noble
• Sony
• Diesel Books
• Apple’s iBookstore (accessible from your iPad or iPhone).

Amazon Kindle Edition:

See larger image After The Fire: A Personal Essay (Kindle Edition) By (author) Fred Bubbers List Price: $0.99 USD Release date February 3, 2011.

© 2010 – 2012, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.