a short story by Frank Diamond Virgil Knotts puts his shoulder into the door of the trailer to open it—that door always needs a little convincing—and even before he crosses the threshold, the question’s thrown at him. “Is it done?” “You know the answer,” Virgil says. “I knew the answer when you left this morning.” … Continue reading The Perfect Murder: A Story About Forgiveness
HERE'S A FREELANCE ARTICLE THAT I WROTE TODAY (JANUARY 5, 2021) At first it was the stuff of conspiracy theorists. Most experts, and certainly the bulk of the public, believed that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started as a result of someone eating a bat in the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China. There were whispers … Continue reading Idea That COVID-19 Began as a Lab Leak Spreads
Dad and big brother, Jason, got along well — great, in fact — except for those stupid occasional arguments that any two family members can have; the kind often forgotten before they’re forgiven.
a short story by Frank Diamond You order a bowl of French onion soup and a turkey sandwich with avocado and bacon, hoping that the avocado will appease your surly arteries. “Here you are,” the waitress sings, serving your beer. Indeed, here you are. But how exactly did you get here? Was it a vision? … Continue reading A Christmas Carol
Before our lives implode
I bought some flowers. Here.
And human love often erodes
In hate or drift or fear
Oh, hell, it’s a marriage man (for now)
I’ve grown some foibles, true.
While you’ve sprouted these new interests
Will we make it? Can we take it?
Here comes that cliché again
We love two beautiful daughters
We’re so enthralled by them
So let’s sacrifice happiness now
Our happiness is not the point
And set table by the dark abyss
Of stony days and brokered nights
We swore before God, remember?
Maybe His miracle can still fix us
But maybe not. Let’s tough it through
That’s all I’ve got. And you?
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE PHILADELPHIA EVENING BULLETIN IN DECEMBER 2006. It is about 325 steps, depending upon the length of your stride, from the door of the tavern, to a wedge of hallowed ground at the corner of Flowers and Bellevue avenues. Here, in Langhorne Borough, rests the gravesite of approximately — by the local … Continue reading Unknown Winter Soldiers Not Forgotten
A Vietnam story The Vietnam War ended for the United States 25 years ago yesterday. As other wars have, it left a lasting mark on the country and the world. And on families. More than 58,000 American men and women died in Vietnam. One of them was Charles Diamond -- "Chick" to his family, "Doc" … Continue reading ‘God … said no’
By Frank Diamond [ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER, 2005 IN THE PHILADELPHIA EVENING BULLETIN.] As apropos for the night before Thanksgiving, something not too filling: A tale related third-hand. I don’t often pay full attention to the homilies on Sunday — a reflection more on my poor concentration than on the quality of the speeches. However, … Continue reading So Very Much To Be Thankful For
a short story by Frank Diamond appearing in The Fictional Cafe. https://www.fictionalcafe.com/ave-maria-on-the-moon-by-frank-diamond/
https://soundcloud.com/user-132915329/pennypack-park
Lyrics by Frank Diamond
Music by Camille Peruto
Performed by Camille Peruto
About 10 years ago, when my daughter Allison attended the University of Pittsburgh, she’d periodically call home with updates. Her college experience—you’d be surprised, astonished, and amazed to hear—had been a roller-coaster. Good news, bad news, and the in-between (one assumes). Psycho roommates. Moribund professors. All-nighters. Part-time jobs that kind of paid you, but then … Continue reading Therapy Dog
“You stay your age forever.”
Sign now, sit back, watch
These premiums will not change
As indemnification unfolds
October leaves drift like embers
Each snapshot freezes, then evolves
Moral hazard roils and regals
As outliers in mid-orbit pause
Dodging regression to the mean
“Love stays its age forever?”
No, it’s different looking back
That’s no stranger in the corner
Slowly waking from her nap
https://soundcloud.com/user-132915329/toliveagaintheplacewherethechiefsmeet
This is an audio experience on the Soundcloud platform. It contains the song “To Live Again” written and performed by Camille Peruto to accompany the short story, “The Place Where the Chiefs Meet,” written by Frank Diamond (me) and narrated by Maggie Peruto.
CHAPTER ONE My very first hit I’m like 13 years old. I never even smoked a cigarette before, but I want to be Kat Borkowski, and she’s the one hands me that joint. This is at Newt’s on Blair Street back in the day, before it got cleaned up and put on airs with some … Continue reading Conduit
“Some old bag probably just lost her old bag,” Mike Feller decides with a shrug. He had just turned onto Godfrey Avenue when his beams swiped an object. At first Mike thinks it’s a dead animal, then realizes it’s a bundle of some sort. It could be a pocketbook; it’s laying on the yellow line … Continue reading Beggar
I sing the body electric
With whatever soul I’ve got
I sing of what comes after
I sing of what comes not
Hark! The Herald of the Trite!
Only cash accepted here
Detoured by subjective plight
Around which it’s tough to steer
My God does not forsaken
When mourning greets despair
The void that won’t be shaken
Is just daring you to stare
And if He doesn’t just exist
Then nothing’s all that matters
Where marks the stand for martyrdom?
Where marks the dark surrender?
So, let’s sing the body electric
That springs from happenstance
Let’s sing the everlasting
Let’s sing the Lord of Chance
It was quiet when I got in. There’s something almost cathedral-like about McStew’s in the slow hours. The light filters in through the stained glass, and every echo sounds like a kneeler being slammed down. How many windbaggy dreams were offered up? How many resolutions? How many times had someone come in full of new … Continue reading Surprise!
I dream that my late wife, Megan, and my very-much-alive girlfriend, Sophia, sit in a café downtown, sharing wine and some delicate finger thingys — rare cheeses, quiche, caviar. They are working class girls who climbed up and out, and neither would munch like this in real life. Give ’em Buffalo wings! The spicier the … Continue reading The Winnings
I reach into my back pocket, unfold both copies of the formula and hand them to him. “Here’s the Fountain of Youth,” I say. “Golden,” Jake says, squinting at the figures. “Cheryl, you’re amazing.” “Careful,” I say. “Looks like rain.” He leans against his car, gives me a look. He places his hands on my … Continue reading The Chase
I could either lie awake afraid, or angry. I choose anger. But I didn’t become angry at Marty for not giving me a raise this year, or the soccer coach who benched Debbie because of her attitude. I got mad at me, Cheryl DeMarco. At my younger self. I got mad that I am a … Continue reading The Checklist
Outerbridge voices
Reach from rest
Nothing lays still
In nether fog
Spread blankets
Over graves
Burgundy sipped
As midnight rises
Bloated at world’s end
Fold newspaper
Horoscope out
Dead swamp, dark layers
Save for future
Space in the attic
Like one more box
Where dust descends
Wait for deliverance
As purgatorial voices
Gather in layers
Outside rotted doors
A friend’s dad is a ward leader and we get to be on the advance team for Robert F. Kennedy and that means Secret Service clearance and other privileges. When RFK arrives in Philadelphia in late March, we ride in the motorcade out to Our Lady of Czethochowa in Doylestown. Because we have college kid … Continue reading 1968
I decided to explore, find a hoagie shop somewhere. Hunger and the need to get my bearings allowed me to set aside the unpacking for a while. I had moved away from this neighborhood 30 years earlier. The places I knew then had either closed or changed ownership long ago. The residents were now predominately … Continue reading Welcome to the Neighborhood
Mr. Landrew read like crazy. When I was a kid, about twice a month he’d saunter down Albanus Street in the Olney section of Philadelphia carrying the latest pile of books he’d gotten out of the library. He’d use one of his old belts to tie them into a bundle. It was a big bundle, … Continue reading The Reader
That I should awake each day
Dream-sliding on a bed of my own
And know three meals will be consumed
Washed down with water running through
Drive to my job. Get lost in my work.
Light a votive for my sleeping wife
Praise how she graces my existence
That I can walk in October woods
While leaves descend in tongues of fire
Or by the Atlantic on a summer’s eve
Feel eternity in the soles of my feet
I can laugh (what power!); sing in the shower
And down ice-dazzled beer on Friday nights
That my health so far, so good (knock wood)
Watch my daughter grow proud and strong
Savoring experiences that her path offers
I can read great books or gossip columns
Watch TV by the light of the fireplace
Cherish the beauty of women with proper respect
Find youth-light in the withered faces of the old
And wisdom in a toddler’s pronouncement
That I can stand awestruck in kiss-ling snow
Or listen to rain romancing the streets
Look up at the star-quilt from a country road
And praise all who have hallowed my journey
For vast legions of humanity dead and alive
Aren’t so blest. And it’s not fair! It’s not fair!
As I drag our trash
To the edge of our drive
Orange streaks our dawn
In our fortunate sky
Two gamey deer just happen
To turn quizzically my way
Then on they bound just like — Snap!
What DO we talk about
When we DON’T talk about love?
Two cats cloaked in canvas
Somehow getting on — but just
Time to decide which room
Needs a coat of paint today
And when the fumes finally settle
Our bickering takes a break
We tap water into the kettle
Never mentioning The Ache
But in that pause each clutches hope
“Please let me die fore this old dope.”
I’m a light sleeper anyway. I miss nothing: the creak of a door, the settling of a load-bearing wall, the slightest rustle of the living room curtains. It was a little after 5 a.m. when I awoke. There was noise at my door. Someone knocked about trying to get the key in the two locks. … Continue reading Dizzy Returns
I bumped into Al Durante at about 5:30 one morning at the Dunkin’ Donuts on East Lincoln Highway in Langhorne. I don’t quite remember all the details. It was early and I hadn’t yet had my caffeine. Either I wanted to make sure that I hadn’t cut in front of him, or vice versa but … Continue reading The Opposite of Social Distancing
“Strawberry daiquiri,” you tell the bartender. He’s not happy. It’s not shot-n-beer. You just tagged yourself “outsider” in this tough Philly neighborhood. Now you’ve broken two “too” rules: ordering a too-fancy drink, and sitting too close to Trouble. You’re trying your best not to let on that you notice, but Trouble’s next to you. Her … Continue reading Meet Trouble
Oh Modest Goddess
Let’s spill the tea
Kick up them tunes
Dance close to me
Oh Godless Goddess
Don’t make the bed
Our culture’s caving
Our soul’s unfed
Please salt the deal
When you have time
I salt the still
You salt the vine
I salt the well
You salt the line
I salt the how
You salt the why
I salt the scream
You salt the sigh
I salt the scene
You salt the high
Oh Modest Goddess
You make me smile
Come lie with me
For just a while
So two guys walk into a crowded bar on a Friday night at the exact moment a couple right near the door stand and—presto—two vacant stools. They belly-up and the bartender’s there. They are regulars, a little older than the crowd that averages late-20s to mid-40s. Two beers. They quaff deeply and put their pints … Continue reading The Calling
Your hair, that hair of yours
No, of course, it doesn’t define you
Curly, bouncing, bold, boyant
Light brown with tints of red
That’s what I said (you set me straight)
People pay to look that way
You didn’t even go to a hairdresser
For ten easy years. Remember?
Perfect prelude to cascading laugh
Sways like a searchlight’s pivot
Lets your eyes shine hope, joy
Toward the children you’ve taught
To old people drawn to warmth
Never like the other girls
Wouldn’t bother carrying a purse
One — that’s right — one pair of shoes
Of the earth, by the sun, to the sea
But what feeds on you eats at me
Right here in Buddy’s Barber Shop
Where photos dim every inch of wall
Tumble down, down like a pyre’s end
“I’m not going to let this beat me. Watch!”
Not if have any say it won’t. (I don’t.)
Love discovers from now back to start
As your beautiful noggin’ steals my heart
Old man next door
Dying from love
45 years married
Wife gone (what?)
About 45 minutes
We say he lost his love
But he looks for her still
Shakes out the laughs
She’s not there
The sunsets, and rain baths
Not there either
Moments of “glad grace”
Jeez, not a friggin’ trace
He stands by the memory chute
But they’re no substitute
I catch him in his car
Staring beyond the driveway
Ask him, “You OK?”
Tells me it’s day-to-day
I know what he means
Man wants to die
Dark hands his only hope
Of seeing love again
There’s nothing that rhymes
Or explains away the unending,
Sharp-stabbing grief —
Which leads me to us
That’s right, you and me
You’ve never asked
What you mean to me
If you did I’d just point
Across the way
You never asked
But for once I tell
You are air and water
And, yes, “shadows deep”
So, now, can we
Get something to eat?
And then later maybe catch
Some serious Zs by the fire?
And murmur, softly murmur,
Our incommunicable joy
“This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.” — Herodotus This profound, timeless quote — a touchstone of many experiencing dark nights of the soul — makes me think that Herodotus must have coached softball. Specifically, he must have coached his 11-year-old daughter’s junior varsity softball team and watched, … Continue reading Field of Schemes
On the night of the first and most important PTA meeting of that year, 2005, the sky cracked open — according to Principal Maggie Batten’s watch — at 6:42 p.m. She’d been testing the sound system when, suddenly, there seemed to be a thousand hands slapping the sides of the building. “Mr. Norbeck?” Maggie called. … Continue reading Maintenance
I am 26 and it’s the night my father died. My mother insists that I had nothing to do with it. My siblings don’t play; they curse me over the phone. They’ll be in tomorrow. At one point, I slump at the kitchen table, crying and sick from withdrawal. Crystal tugs my arm: “Mommy! Mommy! … Continue reading The Place Where the Chiefs Meet
Outside the bay window
This gift to my late wife
Given to her by her sister
Years ago plopped in a hole
No bigger than a shovel scoop
Man, has that thing grown
Cardinals sometimes peck the branches
Pulling berries from icy weaves
And my late wife’s wonderment
Gentles me down corridors of dreams
“Joe Claimer. Tell us your story.” Claimer shifts in his folding chair, the squeak echoing through the recreation center’s gym. McKinley’s probably reading his body language, because that’s what shrinks do, you know. Hell, that’s what everybody does: cops, clergy, pimps, and poodles. Claimer pretends to get less fetal, uncrosses his arms. I’m ready! Ready, … Continue reading The Masculine Virtues
There was something about the ocean that made 12-year-old Emily Dunn happy and sad at the same time. She couldn’t quite figure out why, but her mother had a theory.
Monkeydemon is the reason I stand on this bridge above a man-made lake in the middle of which sits a man-made island. It is 10:30 on New Years Eve. Anticipatory bangs, pops, and shouts stumble in the pitched distance. I parked in a cutoff in fog-laden brush. No cars passed as I carried my package … Continue reading Monkeydemon
The world has lost its beauty
Once filtered through your eyes.
Sunset, sunrise, falling fall leaves
Shift now into a dimmer space,
But I still seek cohesion
With evidence of things not seen
And the scales that fall will weigh.
Do I really need these videos?
These unnecessary glass totems?
Memories swoon, drift and die
Then rise at the oddest moments.
My tickets on the River Styx,
But everything else needs to go.
How do you weigh stuff against spirit?
We were both such able thrower-outers,
But look here at this refinancing pack,
Long ago digested by other deals.
“I won’t ever let you go!”
I think as I dismantle
Rooms, chimneys and the backyard fence.
“I just … just cannot stand it!”
Echoes against walls that used to be.
We meet in the afternoon. Since Amy raises a young child, she’s the first to leave. I linger. Twice I stop at the hotel bar but it smells like formaldehyde, and after that I usually head back to the Vault—to where we began. Inside the Vault, business people unwind and I study the list of … Continue reading The Vault
Sure, I lie. Just to calm her down. I squeeze her shoulders—she on the ground, now—and I don’t even ask “Are you choking?” or “Do you need help?” like they teach in first aid. Because she’s beyond frickin’ choking to the not breathing part and somebody sure as hell better help. I tell her, “I … Continue reading The Deposition
Chances are you knew the place. Maybe you’d wandered in lost, looking for the way to Route 1 or I-95. Or maybe you were a regular, who buzzed in and out several times a week. Part of the routine. No one is ever going to call a gas station a landmark, but Stan’s Mobil came … Continue reading Attention Must Be Paid to a Quiet, Decent Man’s Life
I said good-bye to factory work, and being a cook, and delivering snack food, and a lot of other kick-around jobs when I got a part-time position as a reporter with the Northeast Times in 1984. I would stay for a year and now remember, as the Times celebrates 75 years of publishing with this … Continue reading Remembering My First Newspaper Boss: Marilyn Schaefer
I worked at Fleer bubble gum factory in the Logan section for three years in the late ’70s and early ’80s. That factory closed about 10 years ago and last week the Mount Laurel based Fleer was sold to its rival, Upper Deck, for $6.1 million. The sale reportedly included Fleer’s name, trademark, and sports … Continue reading Gum Factory Memories Offer Some Lessons to Chew On
The orientation was to be done on computer. I’d follow the steps, answer the questions, and in two and a half hours I’d be oriented. This was part of the process of applying for a part-time job at a supermarket near my daytime job. Grocery clerk. I was to stock shelves at night. I decided … Continue reading Sorry To Inform You That You Got the Job
When Herb Denenberg referred to me as a friend in one of his columns, I felt honored. Herb and I had been email correspondents for about five or six years when we were both columnists at the Philadelphia Bulletin. I moved on when that newspaper transitioned from a five-day-a-weeker to a weekly last summer. Herb … Continue reading Remembering Herb Denenberg
Gary Doyle sips his beer. It is a Friday in winter, late afternoon fading like a holiday hangover. Gary peeks at the camera over the bar, imagines the feed speeded up. Silent comings and goings, sniffles and laughter, cute meetings and ugly breakups. Life. A couple about his age enters, looking for seats. “I’ll move … Continue reading The River of Doubt
