Category: Fiction

Jeffrey Hantover

Spectacle lynchings were preserved in photographs that were made into postcards sold openly in stores and city newspapers, sent through the mail, and presumably displayed in homes.

Bob,

Me on a postcard! Right there in front. Grinning like a cat with a bowl of cream. My new bowler hat and my red tie, though you can’t see the color. I’m not bragging, but I tie a good knot. My grandfather taught me. We sure were having a swell time. Show it to Connie—boy, will that give her a thrill. I didn’t have to ask Mr. Jameson for the day off. He closed the shop. Gosh, the whole town was there.

Your pal, Dexter

My dear Gertie,

We were packed tight as a barrel of salt fish. Shoulder to shoulder, you couldn’t move barely an inch. Just a sea of hats as far as the eye could see. Horace lifted up Constance on his shoulders so she could get a better view. I am somewhere in the back with the ladies in their bonnets. We didn’t want to get our going-to-church dresses crushed. I wore my Sunday best. Horace thought it bad taste not to. I got me a nice souvenir booklet with photos and postcards.

Fondly, Helen

Dear Sis, 

Hope your lumbago has not been acting up. We’re all fine here. Get your magnifying glass out and look for your nephew Charlie there in the right-hand corner. He’s wearing his going-to-meeting hat—the one he keeps special for Easter services. He does love that straw hat. Kind of makes him look extra special handsome, don’t you think? Quite a crowd. Simon Lancaster, who runs the print shop on Elm, took the photo and printed these cards. Selling them for a quarter. Says he’s going to share the money with the Advent Methodist Ladies’ Auxiliary. I’m not holding my breath. That man squeezes his pennies till they holler. Running out of space. Hope you can read my tiny writing.

Love, Betty

Dear Aunt Ida,

I baked an apple pie before we headed into town for the excitement. It came out real good. Not as good as yours, but pretty good. I know, your secret is your secret. We did a double grace thanking God for his bountiful blessings and for our dear Ida for the best apple pie in all the world. We can’t wait to see you at Thanksgiving and sit around the table holding hands and bowing our hands in prayer for the blessings of our Creator.

Your niece, Beth

Lettie,

You can’t miss Glenda, right there in the front in the dress you bought her for her birthday. It is one of her favorites. She thinks herself quite the young lady at the ripe old age of eleven. Lou Smithers, our neighbor down the road, is standing right next to her in his straw boater—he is quite the looker. Twenty-five cents for one postcard seems like highway robbery, but it was a day worth remembering, and our Glenda smack-dap in the middle of it all.

Lizzie

Dear Lloyd,

“Service Above Self.”

Quite a crowd and a great many of us Rotarians turned out, didn’t we? Respectable men of good character have to stand up and be counted. Just a reminder that the next luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club will be held on Tuesday the 17th at 12:15 pm at the Sinclair Hotel. The featured speaker of the day will be Prof. Eugene Slater of Springfield College, who will speak on “The Promise of Eugenics and the Future of America.” Hope to see you there.

Your brother in service, R.J.

Dad,

I’m worn ragged, limp as an old dish rag, but business couldn’t be better. I’ve been in the studio ten days and nights. Gulping black coffee and eating slices of white bread slathered in butter. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve made. For sure, thousands. Twenty-five cents and folks can’t get enough of them. I hear they’re selling them all over the state. A friend in Terre Haute called to say they were in the windows of all the drugstores. Set up my tripod in a good place right smack in front of the tree. Give mom my love and tell her no more work in the garden till she feels better.

Love, Simon

Myrtle,

I tell you it was one special night. Hundreds of Kodaks clicking—you would have thought it was cicadas chirping on a summer evening in August. Owen Jr. hollered himself hoarse. But the wind was blowing the smoke everywhere. I had to wash my dress to get the smell of the smoke out. That’ll teach me. Next time I won’t wear a new dress. You and Dick come visit soon.

Love, Dot

P.S. Pardon if I brag, but Junior got first prize in the “I am an American” American Legion essay contest and won himself a $25 savings bond. One proud mother here.

Dear Margie,

Quite the crowd. They ran an extra train to handle us all. I packed ham-and-cheese sandwiches for Paul and the kids. Came back and we all fell straight to bed. A fellow had set up a printing press right there, and we got ourselves a bunch of cards before we left. Can you believe I’m going back to town tomorrow? It’s the annual Golden Rule Sale when all the downtown merchants reduce their prices. Hoping for some real bargains for the kids.

Love to all, Sis

Tom,

That’s what happens when they annoy our young girls.

Ben

Dr. Abraham Washington,

Stay in your place. We are watching you.

The Committee

James Reidel 

The mild winter, the weak frosts, and an old, stale flu shot that still dispels the aches that flutter about my temples, the fits of it’s-nothing, my dizzy spells, and the like—they slackened the healthy fear of getting sick, that last fear on which today’s gods and empires would stand and fall. For the first time in years, there were no snow days nor any cancellations to heed any higher power than our own impulses. On the brown hillsides where the best sledding had always been in previous years, what good was that breakneck desire of the downhill run? When there was at last a dusting, every attempt suffered the halt of the exposed grass. What snow fell was barely worth the trouble of walking back to the top when it meant scooting like crabs all the way to the bottom again. And the tracks of our disappointment just scattered home, leaving trails of slush spots in the trampled turf. Sure, children still coughed and sneezed, but they did so into the crooks of bare arms instead of long sleeves. No one wears winter coats anymore—nor galoshes like they once did, with those black metal clasps found on no other footwear, which you had to press down with your thumb to stay put. Some of us, a dwindling few, an elephant’s memory really, will remember the pull-tabs, like hard light switches that bit the fingers, and the trouble they gave when you could just leave them all undone, with the black rubber uppers flapping as we ran to where we are now—to where there is no real effort to the season, no caveat, to where other things are taken seriously and no snow angel’s impression would like to stay.