It’s important to capture the voice of the storyteller, for the story to sound like the one telling it. These unpublished scenes were written by Stan Yoder as told to him by the people who lived them. The storytelling flavors are distinctly different, because the storytellers were different. Make yours the next.
Pops
So we’re about to launch the boat into the Delaware, and I say, Monroe, why don’t you check the engine. He says, Naaa, it’s fine. We back down towards the water, and I say again, Monroe, let’s check the engine before we launch. He says, No need, it’s going to be fine. So we’re on the water, but not unhooked yet, and I say, come on, Monroe, start the engine, just to be sure. Monroe, says, Damn it, I already told you, it’s just fine! We get pushed out into the water and drift away from the launch. Monroe hits the start button. Nothing. Hits it again. Nothing. Much grinding of the starter. No start. By now we’ve drifted, oh, about from here to the end of that parking lot over there, and the current is taking us. Throw out the anchor, Monroe! Never did get it started that time.
Another time, Monroe says, Pops, let’s go out on the boat. I say, It’s pretty windy. Are you sure it’s not too windy? Monroe says, Nah, it’s fine. I say, Let’s call ahead and find out. He says, Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go. So we hook up the boat trailer and take off. We get there and there’s nobody else there. Where is everybody? The guy there says, There are wind warnings out. Don’t recommend you go out. Monroe says, It’s not that bad. Let’s go. The guy says, Well, be sure not to go out past that point. So we’re about to launch the boat, and I notice the flap over the hole in the back in the bottom is gone. Monroe, I say, where’s the flap? We don’t need no flap, he says. Well, I say, there’s a reason they put that flap on there, and it’s gone now. Don’t worry about it, says Monroe. We don’t need it.
So we launch.
When we get out there, it’s really windy. I mean, really bad windy. We’re pitching all around, can’t go straight. Monroe is driving. I say, Monroe, that man said not to go past that point. Aw, fuck him, says Monroe. So we’re out there now, and the wind is whipping us back and forth, and the current is pushing us one way and the tide is pulling us the other way, and at one point, they all hit wrong. Water splashes all over into the boat about that deep. I say, Monroe, you better get us back to shore, ‘cause I can’t swim! Monroe don’t say nothin’.
So first thing I do is, I grab a life preserver and put it on. Second thing I do is, I look for something to bail with, because the water is coming in over the edge and up through the hole without the flap, and I see the bait pail. I empty that sumbitch over the edge so fast and start bailing for all I’m worth. Monroe still doesn’t have a life preserver on. I tell him, Get your life preserver on. He says, I’m good. I tell him, between heaves of water, OK, but if you’re drowning, don’t expect nothin’ from me. I’m having a hard time getting ahead bailing, because the water is still coming in through the hole without the flap, so I grab a couple towels and stuff them in the hole. That fixes that ’til we can fight in to shore. But I ain’t never goin’ out on a boat with Monroe no more.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Judy
I wake up and it’s dark. I hear crickets chirping and a dog barking off somewhere. A warm breeze blows on my face. The steering wheel presses against my chest. I can’t feel my toes.
Slowly I realize the crumpled Cadillac around me is holding my contorted body tightly. Where am I? The headlights are still on. I see tree leaves. Am I in a fucking tree, like Harry Potter? I smell urine. I can’t feel anything below my waist. Oh, god! Where are my legs?
I knew it was late when I left Fayetteville, but I was sure I could make it back to Little Rock okay. I’ve done it a hundred times. I’ve got OB-GYN appointments waiting for me at my practice in the morning. People are counting on me. There’s no way I’m hanging in a tree north of Harrison, Arkansas, in the middle of the night! Can anyone see me from the road? Is anyone even going by on that curvy road?
I flex my fingers, my hands. Turn my neck. Move my shoulders and arms. They all work. It’s just my legs. My wet legs are getting cold now. If I could just reach my phone. It was in the console. Must’ve fallen to the floor on impact. I can’t move. I’ll just have to wait until someone finds me.
What will Tip think? Tip, my brain-surgeon husband, the congenial-to-everyone-but-me, life-of-the-party drunk asshole who will find some way to make this accident an intentional scheme of mine. Tip, the too-rich-to-divorce jerk who makes my life a living hell in private, who everybody admires in public—what will he say? He’ll likely mourn his damn Cadillac. Judy, he’ll scoff, can’t you drive at all?
I sleep somehow, despite the excruciating pain in my back, and waken to the sound of sirens and voices. The sun is up. They’ve found me. My car is apparently at the base of a large tree, not in the branches, and the EMTs can reach it. They find my phone and call Tip. I hear him on speaker.
Yeah? (yawn) Where’s Judy? Oh, an accident? That bitch! She wrecked my car! Life-flighting her to Little Rock?! She’s just too lazy to drive the rest of the way...
The EMTs glance at each other, then at me. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Louis
I was nine. I saw a bicycle at the Western Auto store right next to the Ben Franklin across from the courthouse. I wanted that bicycle. It cost $35. That was a lot of money for a family of six struggling to make ends meet in 1966. I told my dad, “Dad, I want that bicycle.” He said, “We can’t afford it.” I said, “But I really want it.” He said, “Tell you what. I’ll put one dollar on it and put it on Layaway. If you come up with $17.50, I’ll pay the other half.”
So that summer, I took our old lawnmower, with a gas can balanced on the handle, and I walked the neighborhood looking for lawns to mow. I charged $1.50 per lawn—and I trimmed them, too, with a pair of hand-squeeze clippers. Little by little, I worked my savings up to my goal of $17.50, and finally one day I had it. My dad was true to his word, and that shiny red Western Flyer was mine!
What a bicycle really meant to a nine-year-old boy was freedom. I could ride from my house down to the public library, all by myself. I don’t remember my dad ever sitting and reading something for fun, but I loved reading. I’d check out books three at a time, devour them, then go back and check out some more. Every couple days. Remember the Tom Swift series? He was a science guy, an inventor? I loved those!
The city pool was over by the library, too. It cost a quarter to get in, but sometimes I’d splurge and go swimming. And I always had my baseball glove over the handlebars, because there were vacant lots all over town, often with ball games being played in them. So sometimes I’d stop and play ball for an hour.
Then maybe I’d go to the courthouse and search around the parking meters in front of the courthouse, because the old people that came to do business at the courthouse—they were always dropping coins. I’d often find enough coins to get a cherry phosphate at the drug store. In fact, to this day I still keep my eyes peeled for sidewalk change.
He laughs.
I loved comic books, but I usually wouldn’t have enough money to buy them. So I’d sit on the wood floor beneath the comic-books rack, drink my cherry phosphate, and read until they kicked me out.
Good times, that summer I was nine.
These could be scenes from your life. But your scenes are different. Your life is, well, yours.
Tell your story.
Call or email me for a pleasant, private meeting to get your book—your own story—started.
Stan Yoder
817.845.8415