Dave's Fiction Warehouse

It looked bigger in the barn. H i there. Just stopped in to make sure the pipes haven't frozen and somebody's still feeding the racoon. Check and check.  I do pay a couple of troubled youths to drop by from time to time. They are not diligent, but neither are they expensive. I pay them in empty beer bottles from Bayern Brewing , which are redeemable for a piddling discount on the next six-pack. Not a livable wage, but I assume they have other income streams. Petty theft and so forth. Anyway, the place looks OK. Graffiti is minimal and the tramps haven't burned the sofa. Knock wood. The toilet seems to be clogged, but maybe that will discourage further use. I'm thinking of selling. This being Missoula, developers have expressed interest in buying the Warehouse and chopping it up into 450-square-foot condos. Each unit would rent for $5,000 a month or sell for 750 large. Seems steep, but around here that's called affordable housing. You're welcome. I just like to g...

C ynthia from HR brought around the Christmas card. By the time it reached Henderson’s desk, it was already bulging with bills. Henderson sighed and reached for his wallet. He wasn’t crazy about diminishing his meager supply of cash, but it was Christmas and he supposed he should do his part to help the less fortunate. Probably a coworker had suffered some medical emergency, some unforeseen household disaster. He slipped a fiver into the card and then noticed the name on the envelope. “Mr. Ryan? Who’s that? The only Ryan at this company is the boss.” Cynthia smiled and took the envelope. “Yes, Donald J. Ryan. The Third. He’s a wonderful boss, isn’t he?” Henderson frowned. “Depends what you mean by ‘wonderful.’ I haven’t gotten a raise in five years, while the company’s profits have about tripled. But I suppose he’s nice enough. What happened? Is he all right?” Cynthia looked at him blankly. “Oh yes. He’s fine. Never better. Why do you ask?” “If he’s fine, why are we giving him money? I...

H ere’s a sad sight on New Year’s Day: a fully trimmed Christmas tree taken out with the trash. I know some people get sick to death of holiday details, but wouldn’t you want to save some of those ornaments? No doubt there’s a story here that I really don’t want to know. As I’ve mentioned before: We live in an odd neighborhood.

I t’s a question I’ve long pondered: Why America, with all its tech prowess and industrial might, can’t produce a string of Christmas lights that will last more than one season. Yesterday I decided to deploy my annual Christmas display, a subdued arrangement consisting of lighted garlands on the porch and fake greenery around the entrance and a door wreath that is admittedly getting a little threadbare. I plugged everything in. Three of the four strings remained dark. No problem, I thought: I’ll just change fuses. I did that, and — voila! — now none of the strings would light. A variety of Christmas curses filled the tepid air over Jacksonville — like Darrin McGavin in A Christmas Story, except mine was actual profanity. I considered bundling all the Christmas crap back into the garage and being done with it. But this morning it’s still out there. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a metaphor for finding the Christmas spirit in an aging heart. Sometimes it just doesn’t light up when it should. A...

Every year I get more of these ghosts of Christmas past in the room. They don't say much. They don't have to. I already know that the best Christmas in middle age cannot match the least one of childhood. Then it was about things yet to come. Now it's about memory. But I have a feeling those ghosts expect me to pretend otherwise. I think of them every year when my neighbors and I come forth to set out our luminaries. It's a tradition in my Wichita neighborhood: one weekend in December, we grudgingly honor a pact to line our ordinary streets with points of light. I thought it a little goofy when I first moved here, and kind of burdensome to keep those candles lit in a freezing drizzle. But I'm a true believer now. You take one paper bag with a candle in it, it's not really much to look at. You take hundreds of them and put them in a row, and the effect is magical. That well-worn way to work becomes a runway to heaven. I guess it's that way with acts of kin...

After a certain age, Christmas becomes a season of regret: The loss of loved ones over the years, the loss of friends, the loss of youth. The loss of all those Mattel toys that would now fetch a fortune on eBay. The sad truth is that the best Christmas in middle age cannot match the least one of childhood. But the important thing is to pretend otherwise. I go back and forth on this, but today I figure the holiday is bigger than I am. It's not really my right to succumb to cynicism and say to hell with the lights and the tree and the travel and the shopping. I figure Christmas has lasted this long because guys like me see a little bit of ourselves in Ebenezer Scrooge, and each year take small steps to minimize the resemblance. So this weekend I'll again be up on the ladder, cursing lights that in 12 months have become a Gordian knot. I'll be setting out luminaria, as is the custom in my neighborhood, and cursing the candles that won't stay lit --also a custom. I'll ...