Hilda & Hemingway in:

"HEY HILDA!"

by

Frank Westcott

Copyright by Frank Westcott, 1987. All Rights Reserved. First published in The Cookstown Advocate, 1987. Cookstown, Ontario.

        "Hey, Hilda. How about another cup of coffee?" I see Hilda nodding behind the counter as I write on the white pad I just bought at the drugstore. It's one of those ones with the red covers you use for writing letters. I don't want to write any letters. Well, I do, letters of the alphabet, not letters you send to people. Words. You know. Like what I'm writing now.

        Anyway, Hilda nods and bobs over with a fresh cup in her hand. She sets the coffee right on top of my pad. I can see the slopped coffee soaking brown into the paper.

"Geez, Hilda. That's my pad you set that on. Lookit." I lift the mug.         "Yeah, a brown circle. Cute."         "Cute, my foot. I'm writing on this pad."         "So."         "So you stained it." "I didn't stain it." She says. "The coffee mug stained it. I just brought it over."

        "It, it, it, it, It. Well darnit Hilda. How can I write on it now that it's stained?"

        "Same way you always do. With your pen." She says.

        "I'm not using a pen. I got a pencil. See here. A pencil. Want to see how it writes over coffee stains?"

        I start at the bottom of the page and draw ever increasing circles. I work my way into the center where the coffee stain is turning my paper into mush. The pencil stops writing and sinks into the paper to about page three. "See."

"Get another pad. Paper's cheap."         "Well trees aren't." Exasperated, I say this and wonder what I'd start with that one.         "Sure they are. You can get 'em for free. Heck, they grow all over the place. Took two seedlings out of my lawn yesterday. If I'd thought you wanted 'em I'da got 'em for you. Shame. Should tol me. Coulda brought 'em in for ya."         With that she turned and headed back to the counter. I thought of asking her for some more cream but second guessed myself and put in an extra bag of sugar. Well, I opened the bag first and poured the sweetener out of it into my coffee. Course, I shouldn't even say it's my coffee the way Hilda thinks.

        Gawd, it's hard you know. Trying to write something down on top of these coffee stains I'm thinking and then a new pad exactly the same as mine slips under my nose and I see Hilda's arm attached to it. I follow the arm to the right and up past the elbow and lo and behold there's Hilda attached to her arm which is still attached to the pad in front of me. She's smiling.

        "Here. Can't stand to see a grown man cry." She says.

        "Trite." I say.

        "Maybe so." She says.

        "Anyway, thanks." I say and she nods her nod with a smile attached to her face and walks backward a few steps before spinning around and skipping back to the counter.

        I mean, I like Hilda. Otherwise, I wouldn't be trying to write here. Don't want to get serious or anything.

        Here's a one page novel.

ONE PAGE NOVEL

        Sam Shellburne ate a horse. He gagged on the hindquarter and died. His illegitimate son, Robert, didn't come to his funeral so Robert unwittingly missed out on the reading. He did not know it, but if had been there he would have inherited fourteen million dollars. Alas, poor Robert remained poor. He starved to death. His illegitimate son Arthur attended his funeral. Arthur got fourteen million and lived happily ever after.

THE END

        "What do you think?"

        "I don't like it." Hilda says over my shoulder. "Sam should have died of food poisoning and Robert should have sued the food company and Arthur gets the money that way."

        "Think so." I say.

        "I know so." She says.

        I pat Hilda on the bum and say, "Thanks. I'll change it just for you, darlin'."

        "That's my boy. After all, if you're goin' to write in my café then the least you can do is write the way I want you to. None of that Harold Robbins between the sheets stuff in here." She goes.

        I think about the story I'm working on. The one about Little Red Riding Hood, except the wolf is a dog and the grandmother is a scarecrow and they live over the rainbow with Judy Garland as house mother. Sandra Dee is Judy Garland and Trigger is the dog and Sally Fields is Little Red Riding Hood. Sally F. wears her nun clothes and picks cotton left over from Place In The Heart. Sure isn't between the sheets stuff.

        Here comes Hilda with another mug. She starts tapping her foot and humming Yankee Doodle.

        "Do you mind." I say.

        "No. Go ahead." She says.

        "What's that word?" She points to my scribble.

        "Pornographic." I say.

        "Oh." She says. "I thought I said no X-rated stuff."

        "This isn't X-rated. It's about Goldilocks and the Three Bears got to Disneyland."

        "Waht'?"

        "You heard me." I say.

        "I heard you, but I don't believe you."

        "No?"

        "No." She says.

        I've had it now. I pack my pad and pencil. "That's it. Good-bye. I can't work in here."

        "I didn't know you worked." She says and starts humming Yankee Doodle again.

        "I told you I'm not a draft dodger. From Toronto."

        "Same thing." She says.

        I leave and wonder what she meant by that. It's raining outside. It's been raining steady for two weeks now and everybody's just about had it with the rain.

        I go to my van and climb in and head west towards my place. I like Hilda's for working when she's not in one of her moods, which is about as often as the sun shines these days. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the rain getting to everybody.

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