A Short Story Collection

A piece of cardboard

My lawyer, a poor, cheap man who wore little and knew little, knocked on the door of my run-down apartment with a forlorn expression slicked across his plasticine face.

"Are you Mr. Frauk?" He pulled out a card, offered his rubber-gloved hands, but I refused. He offered it again, but I pushed it away and smiled in false respect.

"Mr. Frauk?", the lawyer repeated in his ancient German accent.

"Frank", I paused, and beckoned him in, "My name is Frank. What is this about?"

"Mr... Frauk", his lips curled as he grimaced to pronounce my name," Frauk, Frank, Frauk... Nonetheless, I'm here because of a recent uncle of your kin. If I remember him properly, his name is Drew Trijark."

"Trark", I repeated, but in a different accent, mocking him somewhat.

"Trark, Trijark, Trark... But what I wanted to talk to you about is his inheritance", my lawyer paused as if in sadness and contemplation, turned away, hiding his motionless expression. He stiffened upwards, showing his pale, facile features, and continued, "Drew is dead. Yesterday his heart stopped. I'm sorry if it seems difficult-"

"You mean...His inheritance?... What is in his inheritanc-...", I paused in the realization of what I had said, coughed in embarrassment. I smiled again and continued in a different direction, "I'm sorry, I meant his-"

"Not much of something that matters. But his loss must be a significant burden.", my lawyer said quickly, rubbing his rubbery fingers in fast spurts so that some of the outer coatings of his gloves peeled away.

"No, no, no, I meant something else. Not his inheritance. He was a great uncle, someone that I admired.", I nodded.

My words were blunt and quick, having their effect, and my lawyer nodded along with me. He didn't talk for a few seconds, quietly repeating my actions. Then, he continued with his talk.

"Tomorrow is his funeral. And, as you are one of his few relatives. You will be slowly preceding along...", my lawyer mumbled, continuing in his droning response, as I thought about his inheritance.

An RV, with windows of peeling glass, two flat tires, and two missing tires. Barely anybody around the place except my uncle. He lived in the deeper parts of California. But the inheritance? I remembered a bookshelf, some boxes, and food lying everywhere. Broken glass lying in the dust. Picture frames swinging in the tilting, rusty, smelly, junk-filled place. Fumes of chemical waste pouring into the air. Burnt skeletons of dead cars and dead places filled the place. The carcass of a dead cow drying in the sun, a raisin in the dust.

"His... inheritance?", I mumbled in thought. My lawyer turned around suddenly.

"What?"

"Hrmmm?", I straightened."Oh, nothing, nothing, thinking to myself"

I tapped my forehead, in hopes that he would understand, and also nodded.

He nodded along with me again. Then, he continued with his long monologue.

"It was a shame that he died at the young age of.... I don't understand whenever, whence, or when, but... ", and my lawyer went on and on about everything my uncle had done and what my uncle had achieved, although there were thousands of men like him. All pale-faced and unoriginal as he was. Eccentric, demeaning, isolated, wiry, and thin. All of them had let the wind softly blow them away.

He looked at his watch, while his lawyer looked through the window into a drowned and polluted city, full of the scarred people, and the smog of the sharp chimney-stacks.