Joe Burke's Last Stand
Wetterau, John Moncure
English
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Below is a summary of Joe Burke's Last Stand
Creative Commons
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, California 94305, USA.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or to any events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by:
Fox Print Books
137 Emery Street
Portland, Maine 04102
207.775.6860
foxprintbooks@earthlink.net
Thanks to Larry Dake, Christopher Evers, Bruce Gordon, Majo Keleshian,
Jane Lowenstein, Sylvester Pollet, and Nancy Wallace for valuable
suggestions and invaluable support. Gino's poem, "Aesthetic," is by
Sylvester Pollet and is used with his permission.
Cover print: copy after Ogata Korin, 1658-1716.
This book is for Rosy
Joe Burke's Last Stand
1
"My rig's a little old, but that don't mean she's slow--Batman--that
don't mean she's slow." Joe Burke was singing, driving south. His rig
was a blue Ford pickup with a battered cap on the back. Batman, all six
inches of him, was propped upright on the dash.
Joe followed signs to the Weston Priory, climbing through woods and out
onto an open plateau. A cluster of wooden buildings stood near a pond.
A monk was raking leaves from a path that curved around the pond like a
trotter's track. Joe got out, stretched, and entered a gift shop by the
parking lot. A middle aged woman seated next to the cash register
closed her book.
"Where is everybody? Rehearsing?" She smiled slightly and remained
silent. "Lovely day," Joe said.
"Yes, isn't it."
He bought a cassette made by the monks. "A bit stagy, Batman," he said
climbing into the truck and closing the door. "We must continue to seek
truth and contend with the forces of evil." Batman stared resolutely
ahead.
Joe cut over to the interstate. When he reached the highway, he played
the cassette: resonant voices and a single guitar, encouraging.
"Sappy," Ingrid had declared impatiently. Joe smiled. She was free of
his taste in music now--had been for a year and a half.
At Brattleboro, he turned off the highway, rented a motel room, and
walked into town. He found a brew pub where he sat at a corner table
with a pint of ruby brown ale--cool and fresh, the malt veiled with
lacy astringent hops. He had another and watched the bartender talk on
the telephone, her elbows and breasts on the bar, a vertical worry line
dropping between her eyes. She was about his daughter Kate's age. The
room began to fill, the nasal sound of New York mixing with flat New
England tones. The Connecticut River valley narrows in Brattleboro, a
gateway to upper New England for New Yorkers. He was going through in
the other direction, trying to figure out what to do next. What do you
do at 52 when the kids are grown? The same things all over again?
He took out a notebook and remembered the drive--the blue sky, the red
and gold ridges, small fields tilting greenly in their arms. On such a
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