January 19, 2026 · 10:22 pm

You’re Going the Wrong Way

By Jim Janus

I recently wrote how I paused my decades-long breakup with the bears to watch their wildcard win against the Packers. The game’s finale gave some family fun, a bit like 1985.

Wanting the fun to continue, I told Dad and Mom we’d watch the Bears versus Rams in the divisional playoff. My parents are in their nineties and I’m grateful for time with them–plus they’re my excuse for watching Chicago while claiming I’m still not a fan.

Before Sunday’s kickoff, I streamed the ’85 matchup. Dad and I stood and watched those Bears as they recaptivated us so completely that our ladies had to call us to the dinner table.

Jolted to the present, I flipped to the ’26 Bears and hurried with Dad to our seats. Chicago started with the ball, and I was only on my first helpings when they gave it away. The Rams, in their next five plays, took the ball across the goal line. I could no longer lift my fork. I pushed second helpings around until the next quarter when a Bear caught a pass in the end zone. “That helps my digestion,” I joked.

The second half took us to the living room. Lots of silence until the last play. Eighteen seconds left. Bears losing 17 to 10. The ball is snapped from the 14-yard line and Williams runs twenty-five yards–in the wrong direction–then launches what seems an up-for-grabs pass that goes and goes and goes…into the end zone and is caught by Cole Kmet!

You should have seen our faces. You did see them. The same expressions of you and whoever you were with. The fun was back!

As the fifth quarter was to begin, the TV showed the rules. My wife couldn’t bear whatever would come next. She left the room but Dad, Mom, and I stayed to the end.

I don’t need to tell you the end.

A person who says they broke up with the Bears could cite Sunday’s playoff loss as why they won’t go back. It’s more heartache.

But my heart’s okay…and not because the Bears show potential to get even better.

As overtime played out, I thought about what I could do after the game: hug my parents, laugh with my wife, read a chapter in a book, write something.

I realize now that it was me who made my past relationship with the Bears unhealthy. I expected my happiness to come from them.

Now I just want the Bears to bring some fun. And that’s what the past two games did.

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January 13, 2026 · 7:48 am

End My Breakup with the Bears?

By Jim Janus

The Chicago Bears.

They won the Super Bowl in 1986. Then decades of heartache followed. For me it became an unhealthy relationship. Night-game losses to Green Bay hurt the most, ruined the night and the following day.

In 2007 the Bear’s Super Bowl loss to the Colts was all I could take. I broke up with the Bears and eventually stopped watching football altogether.

A number of times since 2007 the Bears reached the playoffs–never the Big Game. It didn’t concern me because I didn’t watch. I put time into other things.

Nineteen more years passed and January 2026 came. I learned the Bears would face the Packers for the next step toward Super Bowl. They’d play on a Saturday night.

I weakened.

I came up with an excuse for watching. The game would make history no matter who won. I’d watch without rooting for either team.

But my calendar was booked. Saturday evenings I join my parents for pizza at their place. They’re in their nineties and follow strict routines. Dinner’s always in the dining room, no TV during dinner.

I needed to skirt the TV ban. That night only–that’s how I’d sell it–we’d watch while having pizza. It should be a fun change.

I phoned and they were quick to agree. Dad’s a Bears fan. Mom is too. She mostly likes watching us watch–and providing color commentary sometimes insightful, sometimes ridiculous.

Now I could watch the game without ending my Bears breakup. If anyone challenged me I could say my parents put the game on.

But we needed a screen in the dining room. Their TV’s too big to move from the den.

Abetting my own crime I brought my laptop. I put it right there on the dining table and streamed the broadcast.

As we awaited the kickoff we talked about 1985 and the parties and fun those games gave, watching McMahon, Payton, Perry, and team.

Now we hoped these Bears would win. But as we progressed through cocktails, dinner, and dessert we watched Chicago trail.

Before halftime my dad wrote off the Bears, noting their defense wasn’t strong enough to enable a win. Around 10 PM we watched the Packers get 6 more points.

27 to 16 with only 6 minutes left? I tell Mom and Dad, “I’m taking my computer and going home.”

As I’m packing, my dad walks to his den and turns on the TV. He calls me, extends the remote and says, “find the game.” I press the mic and say “Chicago Bears.” Bright green turf lights up the screen. Players in navy and in yellow move about. The score now shows Packers 27, Bears 24.

What?

Somehow the Bears scored 8 points during the brief blackout I imposed.

So there we are, my dad and I standing shoulder to shoulder, and my mom’s now in the den too, in a chair that’s facing us rather than the TV, and she’s watching Dad and I standing and cheering for the Bears like we did so many decades ago.

We watch the Packers miss a field goal with less than 3 minutes left, watch the bears get a TD with less than 2 minutes left. Now the Bears are ahead 31 to 27. They hold the Packers and ultimately break up their pass in the end zone to seal the win!

What a great time my dad, mom, and I had. Especially those last minutes of the game. It felt a bit like ’85.

Now I’m planning to watch the next game with them.

As for the Bears and me… Will I go back to being a fan? I’m telling myself to be strong. I’ve been hurt too many times. 😉

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April 13, 2025 · 12:34 pm

Kedge Saves an Ace

2025 Submission to NYC Midnight’s Short Story Challenge

By Jim Janus

     In the backroom of the Frolics the game of twenty-one was dealt by a kid who didn’t look it himself. He’d been a sailor for a year and loved it. Except for the water. He feared drowning so much that he couldn’t pass the swim test. That earned him the name Kedge and a discharge he didn’t want.

     Though the Navy couldn’t teach him to swim, his shipmates taught him blackjack. One night he won big and celebrated by getting a tattoo. It wasn’t Ace-Jack. Instead it was eight, nine, three, ace. The design almost didn’t fit. It’s how the cards came.

     The failed sailor disembarked at Navy Pier and stumbled along Kinzie until Wabash, where portraits of showgirls drew him into the Frolics. The owner felt bad for him and made him blackjack dealer. DeCarlo and his wife didn’t have kids, so they cared for Kedge like he was their college dropout. Eventually Kedge dealt so many games he got comfortable with the clientele. He made them laugh and everyone liked him. Then, Edward “Eddie” Esposito took over the club.

     The final night of the Frolics was in ’58. The agreement between old and new was fair and square. After the last performance Eddie would get rid of staff and change the theme of the club. No burlesque dancing. No backroom blackjack. He was bringing in Jazz and he would name the place…Eddie’s.

     That evening before the doors opened, bright bulbs blinked a border around the marquee’s movable letters: FROLICS FINAL NIGHT! In the lobby DeCarlo came down from a stepstool. In his hands was a 1940s framed portrait of a platinum blond who was the mainstay of the club. DeCarlo looked at it and reminisced. Decades of running the place wore him down. He didn’t mind the takeover, didn’t mind the dull new name. What troubled him was finding work for Kedge and keeping the portrait without Eddie catching him. Eddie already claimed it for its collector’s value.

     Kedge arrived through the framed glass door and DeCarlo pulled him aside. “After tonight I’ll get you a new gig.” He handed Kedge the address of his new home outside the city.

     In the back room Kedge got the blackjack table set up. The club’s doors weren’t open yet but someone stepped in to gamble. It was Eddie. Kedge barely knew him but despised him for putting everyone out of work. Kedge was a straight dealer, meaning he always dealt the first card from the deck. But he mastered being able to deal the second card while keeping the first for later. He could help a player win or make him bust. Now he’d make Eddie bust to make him feel bad. What’s to lose, Kedge thought. I won’t see him after tonight.

     Eddie Esposito was known in Chicago not only for his nightclubs but for his trumpet playing. His head was nearly bald and he always wore gray slacks with a gray sport coat. He weighed over three hundred pounds. Maybe he got big from the steaks he ate, maybe he just had a big frame. Either way his massive stomach and chest gave him bulk to bounce unruly patrons and wind to blow his horn. And he did blow his horn. Not only during smoky performances but a blast or two as he was about to enter a club or a restaurant or a business deal. He always carried it. Because of this, some called him “the Elephant.” They said it behind his back. He was sensitive about his weight.

     The final night, the Frolics headlined Eddie himself. The master of ceremonies skipped out that night and DeCarlo needed a fill-in. That’s when Kedge got his big chance. The audience roared at his intro. Everyone loved it, except Eddie and DeCarlo.

     “He works for peanuts?” DeCarlo was dumbfounded when Kedge met him offstage. “I ask you to introduce Eddie the…” he caught himself, “and you finish with that old joke?”

     “Aw, come on DeCarlo.” Kedge smirked. “He’s got thick skin.”

     After Eddie’s performance all seemed good. His trumpet playing was as mellow as ever, the audience got what they came for, and DeCarlo smiled at the notes in the till. He then got in his Cadillac and headed home.

     Twenty-five miles northwest of the city, ranch houses of fresh brick were being bought by newlyweds planning families. Nightclub operators also bought houses there. In one a man was sitting across from his wife at the breakfast table. The two were noticeably older than newlyweds. The woman sipped orange juice while wearing dark sunglasses, a leopard print robe, and a silk scarf over her blond hair. The man held the Tribune and was reading an article.

     “Tipsie,” the man said. But he wasn’t stating a level of inebriation. He called his wife by her stage name. She was the burlesque dancer from The Frolics, the one in the portrait. DeCarlo, continued to speak. “They pulled a guy out of the Chicago River yesterday.”

     “That’s awful!” She gasped. “Is he dead?”

     DeCarlo read aloud. “Early Sunday the fire department rescued a young man found treading water just east of the Wabash Avenue bridge. He said he was working late Saturday and didn’t know how he ended up in the river. The man appeared to be hit on the head and didn’t remember his name. The rescue crew noted his bicep tattoo as a series of playing cards.”

     “Kedge!” Tipsie was stunned.

     “Thrown in by Eddie,” DeCarlo figured.

     “I hope he didn’t swallow river water.” Tipsie joked to calm herself. “That’d do him in.”

     She thought about the news and what DeCarlo told her of the closing. Tipsie knew how her husband did things and there were times she wanted him to be stronger. This was one of those times and she told him.

     “You shoulda stood up to Eddie after Kedge made that joke about him. Maybe then Kedge wouldn’t have ended up in the river. You gotta stand up for me too. Like with my portrait. You shoulda told Eddie to his face he can’t have it. Instead you stole it behind his back. You think he ain’t gunna come looking for it?”

     “He doesn’t know where we live.”

     “You think he ain’t never heard of the phone book?”

     DeCarlo drove downtown, found the hospital Kedge was in, and by dusk they were back at his house. Kedge wasn’t too badly hurt and his memory was fine. He wanted Eddie to think he was dead. It’s why he didn’t give his name when they found him.

     In the suburbs Decarlo got away from his persona of nightclub owner. He wore a khaki button-down shirt and shorts, and spent time in his basement with its dark paneling, leather couch, walnut bookshelf, and wet bar. On the wall hung an oversized panoramic print of the Serengeti at sunset. Next to it was mounted a replica long gun and a safari helmet. There was another framed composition but it wasn’t hanging. At floor-level leaning against the wall was Tipsie’s portrait.

     The basement den, DeCarlo thought, could be a good place to run a part-time blackjack operation. Now that Kedge was down there they would discuss it. DeCarlo turned a knob on the wooden hi-fi console and from within the orange glow of vacuum tubes escaped through its seams. He moved the turntable arm over a black vinyl disc, set the needle down, and let the player spin-out a tune of jazz piano. From a closet he brought out and set up a blackjack table. Kedge moved his hands across the flat green felt. He opened a deck of playing cards, cut it, and rifled them back together.

     The piano notes were calming until a different instrument joined in. Just for a moment, a harsher sound, a brassy burst. The two men realized the clashing notes came not through the cloth-covered speakers. They sounded from the top of the stairs.

     Heavy footsteps thudded down and there in DeCarlo’s basement, in gray sport coat and gray slacks, stood Esposito. In his right hand he held his brass trumpet with its bell showing a dent, the concave curve from Kedge’s convex head.
DeCarlo at that moment was behind the bar. He moved his foot in an attempt to slide the portrait out of view, but it was too late.

     “That portrait is mine,” said Eddie. He stepped to the wall and with his hornless hand lifted the frame. Then he turned and stomped toward the staircase.

     “Esposito,” a man’s voice said in a grave tone.

     Eddie turned and saw the low African sun eclipsed by DeCarlo–wearing the safari helmet and pointing the double barrel at him.

     DeCarlo continued, “The Frolics you can keep, but not the portrait.” Eddie surrendered the frame and DeCarlo demanded one more thing. “I want the trumpet too.”

     Tipsie was upstairs at the start of the commotion but now stood among the three men. Seeing DeCarlo pointing the gun both startled and impressed her. She knew it wasn’t loaded.

     Sweat showed on Eddie’s forehead. “Keep the portrait,” he said, “but I gotta have my horn.”

     These guys needed a way out of the situation, that was clear to Tipsie. It wasn’t her first time in the middle of a fight and she had experience calming men down.

     She called to Eddie, “Come sit at the bar, fella. I’ll make you a drink.” Eddie took his horn to a stool and Tipsie mixed a Manhattan. “Ya know what I think, Eddie? You’re scared of being vulnerable. I know ‘cause I make time with a lotta fellas. They tell me things they don’t tell no one else. Some, like you, think they can only get their way by bullying. You blast somebody with a note from your horn or hit ‘em over the head with it. And that’s just one of your problems. The other is that you’re afraid of lettin’ your feelin’s out. Your feelin’s are normal, Eddie. But you keep ‘em to yourself ‘til you play ‘em on stage. They make your music beautiful. But imagine if instead a blowin’ your feelin’s through your horn you whispered ‘em into some doll’s ear. I got it figured, Eddie. You’re scared without your trumpet. Scared you won’t get your way and scared your feelin’s will bottle till you burst.”

     Kedge chimed in. “Let’s make him win his horn back. One hand of blackjack–and you gotta hit twenty-one exactly. You do that and you get your trumpet.”

     Everyone liked the idea but Eddie. He couldn’t object because DeCarlo still had the gun on him. Kedge got himself behind the blackjack table, opened a fresh deck of cards and removed the jokers. He noticed Eddie’s forehead beading with more sweat. Kedge froze all of the sudden and the others could see that his mind was somewhere else.

     Kedge was back on a Navy ship, a night when his shipmates were giving him grief for fearing water. They were gunna make him swim by throwing him overboard. Then one of the sailors said, wait. Let’s make him play a hand of blackjack. If he don’t get twenty-one exactly, we toss him. Otherwise, from now on we leave him alone.

     Kedge remembered seeing the hand being dealt: eight, then nine, then three. He remembered himself sweating and starting to feel sick. Then came the ace. He wouldn’t drown.

     Now, back in DeCarlo’s basement, Kedge remembered the sailor who dealt to him. He remembered seeing something different about how the last card came out. The moment he won, the dealer looked at him. Kedge sensed he was about to wink.

     “Snap out of it!” Eddie blurted.

     Kedge dealt the first card, a two. Next a three. Then a four.

     “Hey, what’s the big idea,” Eddie protested. “Ya gotta mix them cards.”

     “Too late.” DeCarlo said, keeping the empty gun on him.

     Kedge continued. A five, then a six. He stopped. The total was twenty and it seemed certain the next card would be a seven. Eddie was pale and looked like he’d get sick. Then Kedge drew the last card, the one he’d been saving.

     Ace.

     Eddie thought he lost until Kedge declared, “That’s twenty-one!”

     Eddie was frozen for a few seconds. Then he rose from the chair and lifted his horn. He looked at Kedge and Kedge looked back, almost giving him a wink.

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January 7, 2024 · 11:22 pm

The Turrim

2022 submission to NYC Midnight’s Short Story Challenge

By Jim Janus

Fiacrius saw the sunrise sooner than the other villagers because he stood on a platform that was two stories high. The platform put him level with the top of a stone wall which circled a yard with a motley structure at its center. He turned toward the oddly tall piling of cottage-like dwellings–some squared, others rounded, some made of bricks, others of clay, some with windows, others without. The units though soundly connected seemed merely heaped. The pile rose and narrowed, so that when Fiacrius looked he couldn’t see the top. Each morning he climbed to the platform and looked up at the Turrim, and each time he reached his hand to the back of his neck to the pain that started there.

Fiacrius turned and looked down the staircase at the small group of villagers at its base. A woman clung to a stalk of corn, a man stood with one foot on an axle from a cart, another woman cradled a baby that was silent. Other villagers gathered a few steps away.

“Which of you is first?” he called.

The woman with the stalk climbed the steps.

Fiacrius asked, “What have you there?”

The woman separated the mottled leaves “It’s from my field. The whole crop is diseased. Someone said I just needed to bring one.”

“Have you tried other ways to cure it?”

“We tried all the natural remedies. None worked.”

Fiacrius placed the stalk onto a low slab of stone set into a large recess of brick that looked like a large fireplace. From something like a high mantel he swung down a metal door, then pulled a lever that extended from a narrow opening on a side of the recess. From behind the recess came a grinding sound, then yellow smoke. After a few moments the sound and smoke stopped, but from high in the tower another sound came, a different sound, like a wail, some vocal evidence of pain like something leaving a being.

Fiacrius swung up the door. The leaves of the stalk were green and healthy. He turned to the woman. “Take it directly to your field and replant it. By tomorrow your crop should be revived.”

“Thank you!” she said, and hurried down the stairs.

He gestured for the next person to come up. A man and his two sons climbed the steps carrying a rusted metal rod.

“What do you have, Christopher?”

“It’s the axle from my cart. It’s brittle and about to break in two.”

“Have you tried fixing it by other means?”

“Why do you ask? You know I only come here when I’ve no other way to fix something.”

“This fixing doesn’t come from nowhere. Each time I pull the lever, some energy leaves the tower.”

“You’re saying my axle isn’t as important as a corn stalk?”

Fiacrius tired of this part of his work, deciding what was worth the power of the Turrim, and what wasn’t. “Set it down, Christopher.”

The man and sons guided the axle into the recess, Fiacrius swung down the door and pulled the lever. A moment passed. There was no grinding, no smoke. Christopher looked at Fiacrius who appeared bewildered. Fiacrius swung up the door. The axle appeared just as rusty and at risk of breaking in two.

Embarrassed, Fiacrius said “We’re having trouble keeping it working.”

“You mean you can’t help me?”

Fiacrius disliked, too, seeing a villager’s disappointment when the Turrim failed to fix or heal. “You’ll have to take it the way it is. We’ll get word to you about when you should come back.”

Christopher mumbled and his two sons carried the heavy axle down the steps and away from the tower, then they started on the path back to their home.

On the steps leading to the platform, a woman ascended, the woman with the silent baby.

Christopher and his sons had traveled a quarter mile away when a sound came from behind, not immediately behind, but from the tower. The distant sound was a combined voice–of a man, woman, and child–in a single wail, prolonged, then silent.

When there were no more people in line, Fiacrius descended the steps and entered under the platform into the custodian’s quarters. He sat on a cot and lit a lamp on a table. He stared at the door that controlled the only passage through the wall and into the yard of the Turrim. He and the night custodian, Audax, were the only ones able to open it. Opening required not only the key, but unique ability specific to opening things which could not open.

As the sun moved down behind the tower, a shadow developed on the gravel road. Into the shadow Audax arrived. He and Fiacrius each had a cup of tea, shook hands, then Fiacrius got into his cart and prompted his mule. It wheezed and coughed as it started to bring him back home.

The road took Fiacrius past the house of a woman he knew for many years. That evening she was out by a tree that on his prior rides by had been gradually leaning and its branches sagging. There was still enough light for Fiacrius to see the woman touch the tree’s roots at the surface of the soil. She wore a simple dress for outdoors, and it stayed clean despite her closeness to the ground. The woman stood up and looked satisfied as she backed away. The trunk stood straight, and its branches pointed at angles toward the darkening sky.

“Good evening, Paula. You’ve done a fine job with that tree.” The woman lifted a pail, carried it to the base of the tree, and tilted its water toward the roots. “Though, I notice your windmill still isn’t spinning.” Fiacrius pointed but she continued to water. “It’s likely the rotor.” She put down the pail and in frustration decided to hear him out. “I can get someone to climb up and remove it, then you can bring it to the Turrim.” Fiacrius turned his head in the direction from which he came, where the distant structure towered higher than the hills that curved behind it.

“Be on your way, Fiacrius. I’ve gotten along thirty years without help from that abomination.”

“You have,” the man paused, “but not in every way.” He realized these words hurt her and tried to make up for them. “I miss having a drink with Matthias.”

Paula glared at him. “You drink well enough on your own.”

Fiacrius regretted bringing up the death of her husband. He changed the subject. “I know a person–outside the Turrim–who has the touch with windmills like you have with trees.”

The woman wiped her hands. “Despite your son, Eligius, being so soon regarded as the best blacksmith in our village,” at this Fiacrius became uncomfortable, “I won’t do it that way, either.” Paula turned, took a step toward her house, then looked back. “You better get on, Fiacrius. You’ll be late for dinner.”

Fiacrius regretted stopping. He prodded the mule, which coughed as it resumed forward on the path.

The next day he was on the path again, his asthmatic mule pulling him to the distant, motley pile. As he approached Paula’s house she was in her front yard, tending to other trees. She was expecting Fiacrius to pass and she motioned for him to stop. “I heard a baby was revived yesterday.”

Fiacrius welcomed this statement from Paula. He hoped the news might change her mind. “Yes. Such a relief. And such joy for the mother. Without the Turrim the baby would be dead.”

“The mother should have found a natural way to save her baby.”

“The infant had more than one defect.”

“Maybe the child wasn’t meant to live.”

“That’s not for either of us to know. When someone’s life is at risk we try to save it. The Turrim was created to do that. That woman couldn’t know all the defects of her child. Even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to get to the various healers in time. Only the Turrim can do that. It’s all there, all at once.”

“People talked of a sound, of a cry from the abomination that came when the baby was saved.”

“A healer is always strained when they use their power.”

“They’re more than strained. They’re drained of some of their life. They need time to recover, a place to recover. They don’t get that in the abomination.”

Fiacrius moved the reins of the wheezing mule, putting it on alert to go forward. “Paula, we each must do our calling. Things are better with the Turrim. The people like it.”

“The ones who haven’t been taken, who haven’t had a family member taken. Lose a child to death or lose a child to that abomination? I’d rather my child die in my home, with me, with her father.”

“Easy to say with no children of your own.”

“I had a child.”

“You?”

“We named her Philomena. She was healthy. Not long after she was born she was near one of our cows that had difficulty breathing. The cow got better. My husband confirmed it was Philomena’s presence that healed it. Word got around and someone from the abomination came. They came and took her, eighteen years ago.”

Fiacrius suddenly felt guilty. “I didn’t know.”

“We tried to stop the takers. It was impossible. Afterwards, Matthias and I didn’t tell anyone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I refused to ever go to the tower and I forbade my husband, too. I vowed the two of us would handle our lives on our own. If anything broke or got sick we’d do what we could to fix it or heal it.”

“And when Matthias was gored by your bull?”

“He insisted I take him to the Turrim. We got him to the cart, but I went back into the house. I froze, I couldn’t move, I stayed where I was. I heard a sound outside that stirred me. I went to the cart and he was dead.”

“I wish Matthias was here. I wish your daughter was here.”

“My daughter is here–in that abomination. I want her out and I want her back.”

“No healer’s ever come out,” Fiacrius’ voice trailed off, “not alive.”

“That woman got her daughter back. I want my Philomena back.”

Fiacrius shook the reins, and the mule breathed loudly as it began to plod forward.

That afternoon, Paula surprised Fiacrius at the custodian’s quarters.

“Fiacrius, I do want your help.”

“Did you bring the rotor from your windmill?”

“No–the great abomination can’t fix it. Yesterday a man with an axle was turned away.”

Fiacrius realized Paula was there to make trouble. He conceded, “The Turrim’s lost its metal healer, but it should get another in a day or two. They’re looking to other villages.”

     “Isn’t there a person in our village with that ability?”

     Fiacrius tried to hide the truth. “No one. They’ve checked the records.”

     “But your son, the one who so quickly became best blacksmith in the village.”

     Fiacrius immediately felt sick. He tried to assure himself that she couldn’t know that the records were kept there or that years ago he removed the reference to Eligius’ unequaled ability to restore metal. He became distraught. “Paula, don’t call out my son. I won’t let him be put into the tower!”

She pulled at the door to the passageway. “I’m getting my daughter out!”

     “Even if I let you in, you don’t know what she looks like.” Paula backed away. “Maybe we can get your daughter out, but we need time to figure out how. Go home and I’ll stop by in the morning.”

     The next day, earlier than usual, Fiacrius set out from his home to allow time with Paula to create a plan. The night before, each one’s mind was playing out scenarios, most of them ending in failure. When Fiacrius got to Paula’s front yard, they sat and merged ideas. Fiacrius insisted their action be at night, but he didn’t know how to get past Audax. Paula had that solution: Trade shifts with Audax for an agreed upon night.

More difficult would be finding Philomena. Paula reminded Fiacrius that her daughter was eighteen years old. Fiacrius recalled that, of the fifty or so healers in the Turrim, there were two women about that age. The night of the action he could enter the Turrim and confirm both women were there, but he wouldn’t know which one to lead out. This most difficult of the problems was solved by Paula.

“Philomena’s ability is to cure lungs. Fiacrius, if we can get someone into the recess that needs their lungs healed, one of the two women should cry out.”

“You’re making it too complicated, now.” Fiacrius complained.

At that moment, a wheeze and a cough came from the direction of Fiacrius’ cart.

     “Your mule!

The night they agreed upon came. Fiacrius saw Paula from the platform and came down the stairs. Not seeing anyone else, he let her into the custodian’s quarters. He stopped at the closed door to the passage.

“Take this.” Fiacrius handed her a lantern. “Earlier I was inside and found the two women. I placed a marker outside their rooms. A single spiral staircase takes you past each. One woman is about ten doors up. The other is five or so above that. Look for the markers I placed.”

“Give me time to get there before you set up your mule. I’ll give a shriek when I’m ready.”

Fiacrius opened the door to the passage and Paula went through to the Turrim.

Fiacrius went out and managed his mule up the stone steps to the recess. He waited for Paula’s signal, but instead a man’s voice startled him.

“Good evening!” Fiacrius jumped in surprise at Audax. “I couldn’t sleep and decided to come by to make sure you were awake.” The shock left Fiacrius unable to reply. He gasped for air.

Paula’s shriek then came from the Turrim. Fiacrius, gasping, pushed the mule onto the slab, swung down the door, and pulled the lever. There was grinding, the smell of smoke, then a wail from high in the tower.

Audax sensed correctly that Fiacrius was having a respiratory attack. “Get yourself on the slab. If you can’t breathe you’ll die!”

To make sure Paula got her daughter out, Fiacrius stalled despite that he couldn’t breathe. He looked from the platform into the dark yard at the base of the Turrim and he saw a light moving, the lantern carried by one dark figure moving quickly beside another. Mother and daughter made it into the open passage below the platform.

Fiacrius surrendered to a push from Audax. Audax swung down the door and pulled the lever, but there was no grinding, no smoke, and no shriek. Just the sound of Fiacrius’ last breath.

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October 5, 2023 · 9:02 pm

Train of Consciousness

By Jim Janus

In the nighttime I hear the freight train, hear it fade off, and I see the back of the last car, the old-time caboose, I see it go into the dark until I can’t see it, and I hear it fading and each night I imagine it going into the country somewhere, just that one long train of boxcars and tankers and flatbeds clacking across the plains in the dark sometimes past a single crossing gate the two red lights taking turns, one on the other off, the other on the one off. It keeps going past trees, past rivers, near mountains. The passenger trains take the same tracks but I know where they’re going, one unromantic suburban stop after another. Til it gets as far as Fox River Grove, I think it is, and the conductor kicks out who’s ever left, the engineer walks from the engine, through the cars, to the last car which becomes the first car, and he drives it back to the city.

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March 8, 2023 · 1:58 pm

You’re an Immortal

An essay by Jim Janus

I’m a god. I’m not the god. I’m a god. I’ve been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, burned. Every morning I wake up, not a scratch on me, not a dent in the fender. I’m an immortal.

So claims character Phil Conors in the movie Groundhog Day. The jaded, arrogant weatherman somehow gets stuck in a cycle where–for him only–each day is February Second in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Phil’s miserable because he’s in his fourth year on Pittsburgh TV and wants to be on a major network. He thinks he’s too good to cover the Groundhog festival and insults everyone along the way.

Phil’s misery increases when he can’t escape Punxsutawney. Each time he wakes on what should be February Third, he again hears the clock-radio sounding Sonny & Cher’s I Got You Babe and a pair of broadcasters calling, “Rise and shine campers, it’s Groundhog Day!”

After so many repeats Phil can’t take it anymore. He tries to kill himself, but after each unique attempt he wakes to the radio’s groundhog greeting.

The movie is fantastical, of course, because none of us lives the same day over and over.

Or do we?

My days are mostly the same. I get up at the same time, drive the same route to work, park in the same spot. I push through the same door, walk the same hallway, sit at the same screen.

Years ago the sameness made me almost as miserable as Phil. I was in my eighth year with a tech organization and thought I was sharper than my peers. I expected a promotion but kept getting the same assignments. My career in application development became a drudgery.

I never expected I’d lose interest. As a teen I taught myself BASIC on a home PC; in college I never skipped a computer science class; with my bachelor’s degree I chose a job as a mainframe programmer.

Those early years of learning, compared to my recent decade of doing revealed I’d become developmentally stagnant.

Stagnant like Phil. But he can remember from one repeat-day to the next and do things differently. The repetition that made him miserable becomes his means to fix the day. He masters new skills and puts himself in the place and time to use them. Not only does he rescue locals, he uses trial and error to make himself attractive to the woman he loves.

When I could no longer take my stuckness, I drove fifty miles to Chicago and attended a comedy writing workshop at The Second City. The Saturday introductory session was my first try at change (while keeping my day-job). I didn’t continue there, but with the city in reach I joined Chicago Dramatists for a playwriting course.

Early each Saturday I printed copies of the latest scene I’d been polishing, set the pages on the passenger seat, and drove to West Town. There in a small theater, professional actors read aloud what I and other students wrote. After each reading we discussed the parts we liked. We were becoming better writers.

After several semesters of playwriting I switched to Story Studio Chicago for workshops in fiction writing. There I learned techniques used in short stories. Since then I wrote a number of short pieces and had some success in writing contests.

Phil’s transformation from insulting people to bringing them joy is what lets him break through to February Third. For me, the fulfillment I get from my writing lets me see beyond the repetition of my job. Each day I look forward to the hour or so that I get to tinker with my current creative project.

Near the end of the movie, the woman who Phil’s in love with sees how happy he is. She’s heard from locals how he’s changed their lives. The two go for an evening walk and she says to him, “It’s a perfect day. You couldn’t have planned a day like this.” Phil replies, “Well, you can. It just takes an awful lot of work.”

Is your today a lot like yesterday?

Will your tomorrow be a lot like today?

Rise and shine, camper!

Like Phil, you can go beyond your job to become yourself. You can experiment and learn. It takes effort, and it might hurt sometimes, but every morning you’ll wake up, not a scratch on you, not a dent in the fender.

In that way, you’re an immortal.

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January 31, 2023 · 4:33 pm

Circe and Scylla

by Jim Janus

The full moon cast a gold smudge onto the flat surface of the sea. No wind blew, but the boat cut in a hurry. Its single sail above me billowed as if from a stiff breeze. The captain noticed my confusion and pointed to the canvas. “Of course it’s not wind that she’s catchin’.” He stepped to the mast and adjusted a rope. “It’s the moonbeams that be pushin’ us!”

Such a thing I never heard. In the land where I grew up, fantastic things didn’t happen. It’s why I left. Father urged me to stay, said he’d pay me to keep toiling at the mill. I worked just one day. The next morning I left–for the seaside.

To get to the port town I walked, or when a cart went that way I sneaked on. After a week I reached town and asked for directions to the inn. I stepped from a walkway of wooden planks into a dim tavern with tables of men and women who didn’t turn to look. The host greeted me and I told him briefly about my needing work and a place to stay. He directed me to an empty chair.

At a table in front of mine sat a man and a woman. The woman had a face, young and smooth, like a princess. Her hair was long and straight, and so abundant and black that constellations seemed deep within. Flat on their table was a piece of parchment with some sort of drawing. The man’s fingertip traced along it, as if showing a path. The woman’s head nodded and then she turned toward me; her dark eyes looked at mine, stirring me with a pang of excitement.

Suddenly the host’s aproned waist blocked my view; a pewter pint of ale clanked down in front of me. He found me a job. A sack of messages needed to be brought that night to a nearby isle and distributed by sunrise. If I accepted, he’d provide me a room. He concluded our deal by saying, “The ferry captain will know who you are. At midnight you’re the only passenger.” He resumed his rounds and I hoped to further admire the black-haired woman. But she was gone! So were the man and the scroll.

That evening I was so tired from my week of traveling I slept soundly despite the shoddy bed and the downstairs din of revelers. Before twelve the host’s knocking woke me. When I stepped from the room I almost fell over the sack of messages.

At the dock within the shadows two figures stood by the ferry, one in a long cloak. As I neared with the heavy sack over my shoulder, the cloaked one boarded and disappeared to the lower quarters. When I reached the captain he greeted me. “You’ll make a fine courier,” he said. I stopped and freed one of my hands to shake. His were full. One held a gold coin that he stuffed in his trouser pocket. The other gripped a rolled parchment that he moved to his coat. “I’ll take you as far as the isle. Someone will guide you from there.”

“Who? The man who just boarded?” I asked.

“No. That passenger’s on other business.” The captain continued, “Normally I won’t take someone last minute, but this one,” he patted his pocket, “I couldn’t deny.”

We pushed off and soon, despite the calm, the sail puffed out. That’s when he explained, “It’s the moonbeams that be pushin’ us!” Sailing would take a few hours, according to the captain. So I continued to engage him for conversation, since the cloaked passenger remained below. When I asked where we were, the captain’s eyes became bright as if with an idea. He reached into his coat, pulled out the rolled parchment, and flattened it on the bench between us.

Near its margins, crudely drawn lines represented two bodies of land. Between, wavy lines represented the sea. Among the wavy lines were drawn two small islands. Near one, humps and the head of a sea monster were sketched. I smiled at the captain and complimented the map’s decorative touch. Being very serious the captain said in a low voice, “There’s only one serpent and it protects the first island. The second island is where we’re going. That monster’s only a threat if we sail too close. I’ve heard it said that if the serpent gets hold of someone, for the next twenty-four hours its stays at the bottom ‘til it’s digested its meal.”

He leaned to a wooden box, removed a luminescent dagger, then looked grave. “Take this ‘til the end of our trip.” I took the weapon and said it seemed too small to ward off something so large. “It’s enchanted,” he told me. The two of us became quiet, and he rolled the map and returned it to his coat.

After some time the first island could be seen. It became larger as the boat neared. From below deck came the sound of footsteps ascending. The captain and I turned. There stood the cloaked passenger–the black-haired woman. Through the moonlight her dark eyes looked to mine. Inside me again stirred the pang of excitement. She spoke, but her voice was cold, and dark. “Sail to that island.”

The captain dismissed her request. “I’m stayin’ the course. The serpent would sink us, otherwise.” The woman stepped forward, reached her arm straight toward me, and pointed a wand. My fascination turned to terror, then I felt myself flying in the air, through the dark, and plunging into the cold salty sea. I bobbed to the surface and saw the boat. On it the woman now pointed her wand at the captain, who pulled the ropes, and turned the boat toward the island.

I kept moving my arms and legs to stay afloat. The boat sailed further away, getting smaller. A swishing sound came from the darkness between me and the boat. Not far off–arching out of the water–a hump appeared. First just one, then directly behind it another, then a third. I reached into my coat for the dagger. In front of me a horrible head rose from the sea, it arched high above, then with mouth open and terrible teeth dove toward me. I lifted the dagger and kicked water to avoid the jaws. At that moment, the dagger glowed and I saw on the serpent’s neck a spot that was missing a scale. I felt the dagger pull my arm until the blade and serpent came together. The monster wailed and splashed and once again I was under water.

I surfaced unharmed to see the serpent’s whole length on the water. Its giant, snakelike body lay underside up, from head of horns to tail’s triangled tip. In the calm I noticed I was somewhat closer to the island, so I began to swim to it. As I got close to the island I saw the boat heading away. On its deck stood only the captain. Despite my waving and calling he didn’t see or hear me, or perhaps he was simply too afraid to stop.

I made it to shore at what looked like the only spot for landing a boat. The small beach extended inland, rising gradually to an opening of trees by which was a garden. Beyond it stood a stone cottage with a wooden door illuminated by the flickering flame of a hanging lamp. I stayed behind the trees and walked the edge of the grounds, peering at the cottage from different angles. Candlelight shone inside, which raised my hopes that someone there could help me get dry and warm.

From inside the cottage I heard women speaking. I couldn’t distinguish the words, so I stepped into the moonlit yard and crept to the window. In the center room a small fire of orange and yellow danced in a fireplace. To its left in a chair was sitting a golden-haired woman of great beauty. Her expression showed peace as she spoke.

“I cannot help you, Scylla. I don’t cast spells anymore.”

She was talking to someone near the other edge of the flickering fire. I shifted my feet to see better to the right. It was the black-haired woman! Now I knew her name. Scylla’s dark eyes showed evil and obstinance. “Circe, just teach me the spell. I’m not asking you to cast it.”

My body, still shaking from my wet clothes and the cold, shook even more as I listened to their discussion of magic.

“Scylla, for ages I’ve been banished to this island, sent here for the spells I cast long ago. Since then I kept a vow to Helios to no longer use magic. Soon he’ll set me free.”

Scylla rose and stepped toward a shelf of books, each one tall, wide, and elaborately bound in leather. “Your freedom is what I want for you, Circe. I’ll prove it. Let me remove these volumes of incantations. Surely they’re a temptation for you.”

Circe shook her head. “You’re not getting my books, Scylla. If others use my spells I’m just as responsible.” Scylla fingered a volume and began to slide it from its place. Circe rose and stopped her. They agreed to rest for the night, with Scylla staying in a vacant shelter in the yard. In the morning they’d arrange for Scylla to leave the island.

Before Scylla stepped out of the cottage I returned to the woods, exhausted. I found an area to try to sleep. I sat on the ground, my back against a tree, and faced the yard. The cottage’s glow dimmed to darkness, and Scylla retired to the shelter. I couldn’t sleep, though, for fear of being discovered. My head nodded and I began to doze when a stirring roused me.

I saw, in the yard, Scylla. She sneaked to the darkened cottage and entered it. I crept to the same window I watched through before. A glow from Scylla’s wand enabled her to find the shelves. Book by book she browsed quickly through the pages, until within a particular book she stopped, lowered her eyes, and ran her fingertip across lines of words. She then closed the book, put it under her arm and turned toward the door. I dropped to the ground and didn’t move. Much later I stole back to my spot in the woods.

I woke to the dawning sky–and the sound of pigs grunting. I also heard a woman’s voice speaking in a strange language. I moved inside the woods to get near the yard where the swine were penned. Just outside the fence crouched Scylla, and near her the book leaned opened against a post. As Scylla chanted, the pigs rooted in the mud. When she stopped, she stood up and studied the pigs as if expecting something to happen.

From the cottage Circe emerged, yelling, “Leave my swine alone.” She saw Scylla’s wand lying on the ground and before Scylla could get to it, Circe picked it up and used her knee to break it in two. She rushed to Scylla who had her back to the pen. The two battered each other with their hands until Scylla’s foot slipped and Circe pushed her backwards over the fence into the mud of the pen.

Circe walked to the book, lifted it, and inspected the page. “You think these pigs were men? You’re trying to change them back?”

Scylla stood up from the mud. “Victims from your past remain.”

“Scylla, your failure to change these pigs back into men is because they are pigs and were never anything else!”

“There’s at least one man who still suffers in a transformed state. That man sent me.”

“He deserved it. The men I transformed were men who harmed me.”

“The one who sent me sees it differently. But I can restore him. Now I know your spell.”

Circe unhooked the gate and Scylla stepped out, covered in muck. “Would you get me a pail of water to wash myself?”

“Go to the sea to bathe.”

Scylla was cautious. “I heard also you can poison the sea.”

“Not all of it, but I’m keeping my vow. Go bathe, and go away.”

As Scylla walked to the water, Circe followed. I moved within the edge of trees to get a better view, then a branch cracked beneath my feet. Scylla stopped at the shore and Circe stopped at the garden. Both women turned and saw me. Circe called to me, “Come out and show yourself.”

I stepped from the trees and Scylla’s eyes showed vexation. “But the serpent devoured you!”

I reached into my coat and pulled out the dagger.

Circe turned to Scylla. “You tried to kill this boy?”

Scylla laughed, “You’ve destroyed many young men.”

Circe commanded me to not come any closer but to explain why I was on the island. As Scylla turned her back and waded into the water, I told Circe my story in a few words. I finished by saying, “My name is Glaucus.”

Scylla, waist deep in the water, turned around and taunted Circe, “I’ve learned much from your books.”

Still by the garden, Circe plucked something from one of the plants.

Scylla looked at me with her dark eyes, and called, “Glaucus, come bathe with me.”

I felt the pang of excitement that I felt in the tavern, but a hundred times stronger. I began to walk toward the sea, then I began to run. When I was about to pass Circe she stopped me. She touched my face and her fingers felt warm and soft, her eyes were caring.

As Scylla plunged under the water, Circe moved her fingertips to her lips. She blew the herb with a force so strong that it landed in the sea. At the swirls of water where Scylla went under, she did not resurface. A hump, instead, arched up. First just one, then directly behind it another, then a third. Then the beast disappeared into the sea.

Circe said she could arrange for me to get back to the port town. She also said I could stay with her forever. She let me choose.

I’m still on the island.

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October 26, 2022 · 7:20 am

Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon

Plot summary by Jim Janus

In Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon (1902), a captain of a ship changes from “having just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day” to doing “something rather clever.”

Early in the story, first mate Jukes updates the log. “Swell increasing. Ship labouring and taking water. Battened down the coolies for the night.”

The coolies were two-hundred men with “yellow faces and pigtails” who worked for years in colonies around the China seas. Now, the Bun Hin company was sending them home by way of cargo steamer, the Nan-Shan. Locked below, each Chinese had his wooden chest “containing the savings of his labours: clothes of ceremony, sticks of incense, a little opium, and a small hoard of silver dollars.”

The swell that Jukes noted was from a nearing storm; the barometer confirmed it. But when he suggested steaming around, Captain MacWhirr refused. “’Three hundred extra miles to the distance, and a pretty coal bill to show. I couldn’t bring myself to do that.’” And, “’How can you tell what a gale is made of till you get it?’”

Jukes thought the captain stupid. The first mate once wrote a friend: “’He’s so jolly innocent that if you were to put your thumb to your nose and wave your fingers at him he would only wonder gravely to himself what got into you. He’s too dense to trouble about, and that’s the truth.’”

The storm increased and tossed the ship so severely that everyone onboard struggled to hang on. Below deck the Chinese were hurled about and their chests tumbled and broke. The coins rolled and the confined men fought over them. The boatswain discovered the chaos and the captain wouldn’t have it. Jukes and the hands–while the storm was quite violent–invaded the hold and took the men’s silver. The taking was ordered by MacWhirr.

The captain was “glad the trouble in the ‘tween-deck had been discovered in time. If the ship had to go after all, then, at least, she wouldn’t be going to the bottom with a lot of people in her fighting teeth and claw. That would have been odious. And in that feeling there was a humane intention and a vague sense of the fitness of things.”

Despite six hours of rocking and flooding, the Nan-Shan reached the temporary calm of the typhoon’s center. Soon the storm would batter again. What’s more, Jukes feared mutiny by the Chinese to take back their silver. Before the trip, the Nan-Shan’s owners transferred her to the Siamese flag. This increased the mate’s concern. He warned the captain, “’Let them only recover a bit, and you’ll see. They will fly at our throats, sir…she isn’t a British ship now.’”

MacWhirr agreed, then told Jukes to watch the ship while he took time in the chart-room.

“In the solitude and the pitch darkness of the cabin, he spoke out as if addressing another being awakened within his breast. ‘I shouldn’t like to lose her,’ he said half aloud. A moment passed, of a stillness so profound that no one could have guessed there was a man sitting in that cabin. Then a murmur arose. ‘She may come out of it yet.’”

The captain returned to the bridge as increasing wind, waves, and darkness threatened the ship. He told Jukes, “‘Keep her facing it—always facing it—that’s the way to get through.’”

The Nan-Shan did get through. On a bright sunshiny day she arrived in Fu-chau. How they avoided the mutiny was revealed in letters that the captain and crew wrote home.

Jukes wrote that the Chinese were still locked below when the typhoon ended. With fifteen hours to port he suggested the captain throw the coins into the hold to let them “fight it out amongst themselves.’” MacWhirr disagreed. “’He wanted as little fuss made as possible, for the sake of the ship’s name and for the sake of the owners.’”

It wasn’t long until Jukes became aware of the captain’s solution. It began when the ship’s steward roused him from sleep. “’The Captain’s letting them out!’”

Jukes flew on deck and distributed rifles to the hands. They all rushed to the chart-room. There MacWhirr was with one of the Chinese who was a clerk and interpreter from the Bun Hin company. MacWhirr–surprised by the rifles–ordered Jukes to take the guns away and to return to help count the money. They would divide the cash equally among the Chinese.

The captain’s plan came to him hours before, when the ship was in the typhoon’s center. It was then he had the “Bun Hin fellow” tell the Chinese they’d get their money back as long as they didn’t cause trouble.

The chief engineer wrote to his wife that the captain, a rather simple man, “has done something rather clever.’”

Jukes’ letter closed, “‘I think that he got out of it very well for such a stupid man.'”

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January 9, 2022 · 10:47 pm

The last word he pronounced was…

By Jim Janus

Many individuals reduce books or movies to quotes that over time have become cliches. Publishers do it. Flip The Heart of Darkness by Penguin Classics. Kurtz’s last words headline the back cover.

Quote repetition or scene reminiscing can lead some individuals to think they’re familiar with a book or movie–even if they haven’t read or seen it.

Mention Deliverance to someone who was a young adult in the 1970s. They’ll likely mimic the tune of “Dueling Banjos,” though they never saw the film.

Even if you think you know its ending, read The Heart of Darkness. Let Conrad’s character, Marlow, take you slowly up the Congo to the dim, muddy place that seems “of the first ages.” Take the trip and experience the full story’s richness and humor in addition to its culmination of darkness and horror.

Many recite the final words that Kurtz “cried in a whisper,” but few quote the person who heard Kurtz speak his last. That’s Marlow. His words also are remarkable.

Firstly because he presents himself as one who tells the truth. ‘You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie. There is a taint of death in lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world.’

But after Marlow blows out a candle and leaves Kurtz’s body, he visits a young woman in mourning. It’s Kurtz’s fiancé and she knows Marlow was last to see the man she loved. She pleads with Marlow to share his last word.

When a character has a big choice–one they can’t go back on–it makes a good story. Marlow must either tell the fiance the horrible truth, or invent something that will save the memory of her love.

The moment of decision felt to Marlow like his destruction. “It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head.”

Then, to the young woman, he replies,

“The last word he pronounced was–your name.”

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November 5, 2021 · 7:42 pm

Sailing the Icy Passage below South America’s Cape Horn

By Jim Janus

“Our sails spread beyond the ship, rising in a pyramid and burying the hull in canvas, like what the whalemen call a Cape Horn-er under a cloud of sail.”

That 1835 passage was written by Richard Henry Dana, who at nineteen quit Harvard to serve on a merchant ship and record his seafaring experience. At the time, books about sailing were written by officers. Dana’s goal: Write the view that was missing–the sailor’s.

From Boston Harbor he set out on the Pilgrim, and like other sailors Dana took orders and climbed the masts, furling and unfurling the sails. When not on deck he was below, eating or sleeping in the forecastle. The quarters were dark, cramped behind the bow, and “before the mast.” The phrase came to describe being a sailor versus being an officer.

Aren’t sailors idle at sea? That misconception Dana clears up. “You’ll never see a man on board standing idle on deck, sitting down, or leaning over the side. The discipline of the ship requires every man to be at work, except at night and on Sundays.”

Dana describes the constant work, “steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction.” He starts by detailing the four months sailing from Boston to California.

Getting there took so long because a ship couldn’t cut between the Americas (no canal through Panama). The only way to the Pacific: sail south over the equator, continue toward the Antarctic, then turn west into the icy passage below South America’s Cape Horn. There, sleet stiffened the sails and rigging, it glazed the masts and deck, and it froze the sailors’ faces and hands.

Despite the labor of sailing, Dana was awed by many sights. “There, floating in the ocean, was an iceberg of the largest size, an immense mountain-island, three miles in circumference and several hundred feet in height. The base rising and sinking in slow motion, the dashing of waves upon it, the thundering of the cracking mass, the breaking and tumbling of huge pieces, all this combined into true sublimity.”

Navigating the hazards paid off when the Pilgrim reached California’s coast. The ship floated into the Mexican bays of San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, where the agent sold the cargo of “everything from Chinese fireworks to English cart-wheels.”

Selling so much cargo at so many ports took more than a year. For sixteen months the sailors worked not only on the ship, but also on shore and in between. Upon entering each bay they dropped anchor, dropped boats, and rowed buyers back and forth. 

Separately, the sailors hauled what was received in exchange–animal hides that were large, heavy, and stiff as boards. From shore, each sailor carried one at a time on his head as he trudged through the surf to waiting boats. The sailors then rowed the filled boats back to the ship. By the time the entire cargo was sold, the sailors had carried and stowed fifteen thousand hides.

Two Years Before the Mast achieves Dana’s goal of giving the sailor’s view, highlighting the hard labor, strict discipline, dangerous work, and countering the romance. Dana writes of a fellow sailor who from high on a yard, fell into the sea and wasn’t recovered.

“At sea the man is near you, you hear his voice, and in an instant he’s gone, nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. There’s an empty berth in the forecastle, and a man wanting when the small night-watch is mustered. There’s one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard.”

That’s an example of the feeling Dana puts into his journalism. The sections with nautical terms were sometimes difficult to get through, but the passages with images and emotions kept me reading.

The return to Boston required the sailors to work just as hard, and Dana’s spirits rose as he neared the end of his merchant service.

“We were now to the northward of the line, and every day added to our latitude. The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of south latitude, had long been sunk, and the North Star, the Great Bear, and the familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in the heavens. Next to seeing land, there is no sight which makes one realize more that he is drawing near home, than to see the same heavens, under which he was born, shining at night over his head.”

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