A Rave Review!

Occasionally I’ll submit a story to one of the literary contests that take place each year. I’ve been a finalist a few times and even won third-place money a couple of times in the annual Pacific Northwest Writers Association competition. This year, I didn’t make the finalist list, but when I looked at the critical reviews of my story, my eyeballs popped wide open. One of the judges had given me a rave review!

This is the sort of thing that stokes a writer’s fire. Scoring my story with 98 out of 100 points, the judge said some extremely complimentary things, for instance:

“One of the best renditions of character I’ve seen in a very long time,” and, “Tense. Moving. My eyes didn’t turn away from the page even for a moment.”

If both judges had seen it this way, I’d probably have taken the Grand Prize. Unfortunately, the second judge gave it 82 points—a very respectable tally, but the kiss of death in a contest with almost 1,000 entries.

If you’d like to see the whole review, click here for a pdf copy. Following the rules of the contest, the judges are unknown to me and my name did not appear on the story, so they were unaware of whose story they were critiquing in the interest of fairness to unknown and well known authors alike. That way the story is judged without bias as to who its creator is. Everything rests on the merits of the story itself. So when the judge says it’s an “extremely well-done piece,” I know he/she is talking about the story on its own merits and judging it a hit.

So, next, I’ll consider making a couple of fine-point revisions the judges suggested, then I’ll either submit it to a magazine, or perhaps publish it as an e-book. I’ll make that decision soon and let you know. In the meantime, here’s a teaser—the first few pages of the story will give you a feel for what the judges were talking about, and maybe whet your appetite for the whole story when it comes out.

HERB SHORT’S STORY

In memory of Uncle Herb, who really lived this story.

The auditorium of Seattle’s Town Hall was filling toward capacity. It was a rainy night and the line at the coat check window was long. There were dames in pillbox hats and mink, and gals in camel overcoats and silk scarves, escorted by fellows in pinstriped suits and narrow neckties, and guys in black topcoats. It was a pretty fine crowd. The show was about to start and the evening’s attraction, Ace Riley, was already on stage. He looked sharp in his black Marine dress uniform and white cap and brilliantly shined shoes. He sat on a chair next to the podium with the mayor beside him, gabbing pleasantly. Seated beside the mayor was another man who held a key to the city in his lap. It was a gaudy looking, big fake golden thing.

Herb Short was a thin, plainly dressed man who hadn’t bothered with the coat check line. He still wore his wet fedora and a trench coat with rain-dampened shoulders. Walking with a limp, he came to the front of the seating area and called up to the stage, “I was at Cactus.”

His voice was loud enough that the idle conversation onstage stopped. Ace Riley, whose uniform burgeoned with wings and medals, battle stars and bars, looked at him blankly.

“Cactus Air Force, Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, 1943,” Herb clarified. “Remember me?”

After a long thoughtful look, Ace said, “Nope.”

“You were my squadron leader. Took us into action against a Japanese convoy up by New Georgia Island, February 4th, three days after I got to Guadalcanal. I was a turret gunner aboard a Navy Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber. Remember?”

Ace stared at Herb a moment. “Sorry, no.”

Herb laughed uneasily. “Hard to remember someone you only knew for three days, I guess.”

Ace nodded his head in agreement, smiling kindly. “It’s been five years, now.”

“I—” Herb began uncomfortably and then stopped. And then he started again with determination. “I think my crewmates and I didn’t get proper credit. We got more Jap kills than they said we did.”

Riley thought a moment. “Things got mixed up sometimes in the heat of battle. What’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say. It’s Herbert Albert Short, USNR six-six-four, oh-nine, five-oh, reporting for duty sir.” He snapped a salute, just a bit wobbly from the drink he’d taken to bolster himself for this moment. Drinks. He’d had three whiskey rocks, over at the Anchor Bar.

Ace grinned and played along. He gave a desultory salute. “At ease, airman.”

“I shot down three Jap Zeros. I know I did. My buddies and I saw ’em burn and splash. All that on my first mission; my last mission. Didn’t you see it?”

“Uh-uh.” Riley’s face clouded and his smile drained away.

“You directed the whole shooting match from 14,000 feet. We made our torpedo run on a destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Fleet trying to relieve their Guadalcanal troops, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Suppose?” Herb felt red rising on his face and neck. “Zeros were thick that day, like to blot out the sun, but we went in anyway. Still don’t remember?”

“I saw a lot of action; a lot of days when Zeros were thick.” A new thought seemed to strike Ace. He turned to the mayor. “You can use that in your introduction. One theory goes that the Japanese Empire lost the war exactly because they ran low on experienced Zero pilots.”

“And I got my share,” Herb insisted. “Three kills. They were on us like flies on shit and the turret gunner’s job was to splash ’em, and I did. But I only got credit for one kill and one probable. You were overhead with the dive-bomber flight. Didn’t you see what happened?”

“Maybe.” Ace looked uncomfortable. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I want the record set straight. Because I got robbed of my credit. Because two men died on that flight, the best buddies I ever had, and I spent the rest of the war in a hospital once I’d dragged my shot-up carcass outta that God-forsaken jungle.”

The light of recognition came over Riley’s face. “I do remember you. They brought you back from New Georgia Island in a PBY float plane a week or so later, wounded something awful. Shipped you and your pilot stateside ASAP. We didn’t think either one of you’d last long enough to make it home. Glad to see we were wrong.”

“Glad, huh? You’re glad I’m alive and right here, right now, asking you, where’s my credit for three kills?” Herb nearly shouted the last bit. The mayor stirred uneasily and looked at the crowd filling the auditorium, and then at his watch.

“Er,” His Honor interjected, trying unsuccessfully to break the lock of Herb’s eyes on Riley’s and Riley’s on Herb’s. “We’ll begin in two minutes. Mr. er, Short, will you please take a seat?”

Herb stood tall, both feet planted, the wooziness of the booze gone. “I’ll take a seat when I get credit for my three kills.” He fixed Riley’s eyes even harder.

Riley looked down at his shiny shoes, and then at Herb again with one bushy brow lowering. “Listen.” He leaned down and motioned Herb to come near the edge of the stage. Herb drew close and Ace half whispered, “Sometimes credit got shared around. You know? If someone got killed.”

“You’re saying somebody took my credit.”

“We figured you for a goner. I remember now. You got hit by flack from the ship you were after. I saw your plane trailing smoke after your torpedo run. I reported your plane lost in action.”

“So, who took credit for my other kill?”

Riley sat back straight in his chair. His face worked like thoughts were percolating that he hadn’t had in years. “Look,” he began. “Some other guys got killed that day, right?”

“Yeah? So?”

“Well, to make their families feel like their sons hadn’t died in vain, we’d sometimes give ’em some credit. You understand? Now, I saw you go down in flames on New Georgia. I didn’t figure anybody could survive that crash.”

“But I did, with shrapnel in my skull and a fractured backbone and a Jap Zero slug stickin’ right outta my breastbone, right over my heart. I dug it out with a stick, and I buried one of my best friends—” His voice broke and he started to cry.

“Easy now, buddy,” the mayor soothed, looking again at his watch. Just a hint of fear colored his expression.

“Who—” Herb stopped and wiped a drip from under his nose and tears from the corners of his eyes. “Who’d you give the credit to?”

“Well… Uh… Let’s see. I— I don’t remember.”

Herb watched Riley’s eyes shift as he spoke and it all came clear. “It was you! You took the credit. You gave my kill to yourself. My kill made you an ace!”

“We figured you for a goner. You were missing for more than a week.” Ace sounded almost apologetic.

“It was nine days in hell!” Herb shouted, making the auditorium ring. Every conversation in the place stopped. “You son of a bitch! You lousy goddamn son of a bitch!” Things that had been a mystery to Herb for five years were suddenly in focus. A wave of nausea rolled through him. He’d had three shots of whiskey at the Anchor Bar while waiting to come here, but tonight three shots were not enough to keep the memories from rushing back, clattering through his mind like Jap machinegun bullets clattering through the Avenger.

Herb glared at Riley. “A guy once told me you hot-shot dive-bomber pilots got the glory by sending us Avenger airmen in first. You knew we’d go in low to drop our torpedoes and the Zeros would follow us down and shoot us up. That left you wide open to come in from above. I’m starting to think that guy was right. You sent us in to die while you got the glory.”

Ace nearly came out of his seat. “Don’t believe it. Going in low was your job. I only told you to do your job and you did it.”

“So why no credit for my kill?”

“Like I said,” Ace replied more quietly, leaning nearer again. “We thought you’d been killed. We’d already reported the kills by the time you crawled out of the jungle and got airlifted back to Cactus. Can you blame me for not wanting the trouble of telling brass we’d misreported kill credit? I could see you were too shot up to ever fly with us again, so I let it ride.”

“Let it ride, huh? My credit for a Jap kill. You let it ride? Credit that Joe and Frank died to get? I buried Frankie in the mud.” He sobbed and wiped at tears with the back of a wrist.

When Herb looked up again, Riley shrugged.

“You fucking piece of shit!” Herb shouted, silencing the buzz that had restarted in the crowd. “You’re up there with the mayor, getting awards when it was me and Joe and Frank getting shot to hell that got you one of the planes you claimed? You stayed above it all, and you’re still up there right now, looking down at me. But you’re not fit to shine the shoes of guys like Joe and Frank and me, the guys that really took those Japs down.”

Now Riley was on his feet, thumbing his chest pugnaciously. “I took down plenty of Japs myself. I would have made ace anyway!”

The mayor was up, beside Riley. He waved for someone in the wings. A cop appeared, followed quickly by another. Herb had no time to react before both cops were on him. One grabbed him by the coat collar while the other wrestled his arm up behind his back in a hammerlock. “Ow!” Herb cried. “Take it easy buddy. That arm’s full of flack.”

“Yeah,” mocked the first cop, whose ruddy fat face looked familiar. “Next you’re gonna say don’t punch me in the chest, ’cause my breastbone’s got a Jap Zero slug in it.”

“That’s damn right—” Herb began, but the second cop wrenched his arm higher and hissed in his ear. “We know who you are, buddy. We’ve had to take care of you a couple-a times lately.”

“You piece-a shit!” Herb bellowed at the first cop the way he’d bellowed at Ace Riley. He wrenched himself sideways, trying to break the second cop’s hammerlock, but that only made the guy twist his arm up higher and set the first cop on him too. They shoved him over backwards and came down heavily on top of him. When the back of his skull smacked down on the wooden floor, Herb saw a glaring flash of white light like he’d seen when the Avenger slammed into a giant banyan tree on New Georgia Island.