"The Smoky Dawn"

A large public art installation adorns the concrete wall at Baxter Pharmacy, commanding attention with its striking grid of eighteen colorful and diverse artworks. Each segment of the grid offers something unique—abstract designs interplay with vivid portraits, tranquil landscapes, and evocative still lifes—together weaving a visual narrative that speaks to both individuality and unity within the community. The wall itself is textured and weathered, bearing the marks of time and the elements, while a row of parked cars rests quietly below. In the midst of this everyday scene, a lone figure stands, gazing up at the mural, perhaps contemplating the stories and shared histories embedded in the paint.

After all’s been said and done, you take the words, lay them down like cards on a felt table, then tuck them away in a drawer nobody ever opens. That’s the business of memory—in a town with more stories than lamplights.

Peekskill was buzzing this morning, the kind of electricity you feel under your skin before the sun’s even had its first coffee. I was out early—couldn’t sleep, not after an unexpected guest crashed my solitude. A good person, really. The kind who leaves you wondering if you’ll ever see them again, or if they’ll just haunt your cigarettes and half-finished sentences.

Valley Brook Games
In Valley Brook, Leo was waiting in the shadows, nursing his own peculiar brand of mischief. He’s got a way of teasing that makes you feel lighter and heavier at the same time—a contradiction in motion.

The other day, he froze up—icicles in his brain—couldn’t remember my name. “You haven’t been around in more than a month,” he said, like time was a crime I’d committed without knowing. He asked for clues, so I threw him one: a name shared with the King of England, once a handsome prince before the crown weighed him down. But Leo couldn’t catch it. I had to spell it out. When I did, he pressed a hand to my heart, gave me that crooked smile, and promised he’d never forget again.

This morning, I decided to test the promise. I showed up, looked him dead in the eyes, and said, “Good morning, Leo.” He played coy, feigning forgetfulness, but then tipped his hand. “Charles,” he said, “how could I forget a beautiful name like yours?”

That’s Leo—one foot in the truth, the other in the joke. He admits, with a sheepish grin, that while he sometimes blanks on names—his mind icing over at the most inconvenient moments—he never forgets an order. That much is always true. The choreography of coffee and pastries, the rhythm of regulars and their favorites: these live in his bones. Orders, he gets right every time, even if the names momentarily slip through the cracks. It’s a quirk everyone forgives, maybe even loves him for. And in the world of Valley Brook, it’s enough to make him unforgettable in his own way.

But the morning didn’t end there. A new introduction cut through the haze—Dimitri, all shadows and angles, with a goatee as sharp as his gaze and a ponytail trailing behind like the tail of a comet. He didn’t just enter the story; he rewrote the beginning. The energy shifted, growing darker but somehow more alive.

In this town, painted people show up when you least expect—carrying their own stories, their own colors—ready to be brushed onto the canvas of another day.


Ready to Write
So here I am, pen in hand, ready to dive into fiction—ready to paint people as they are and as they could be. Amazing, isn’t it? The journeys we take just to reach that precipice once more, teetering between reality and imagination, memory and myth. In the smoky dawn, every name is a story, and every story waits to be painted anew.


Thanksgiving at the Farm: The Reefer Incident
The weather today is the very definition of perfect fall—crisp air, no sunlight, and that gentle hush that settles over the countryside before winter arrives. It brings me back to those college days, when I’d return to my grandparents’ farm and everything felt just right—even the sky.

My first car—a blue Volkswagen Bug, bought with the money I’d earned working summer camp jobs in Springfield, Massachusetts—was my ticket home.

There’s one Thanksgiving that still stands out, forever tied to that little Bug. My mom, Aunt Lue, Uncle Gunter, and my grandparents, John and Queen, were all gathered around the car when Aunt Lue made a discovery that would become family legend. She spotted something she believed was a cigarette. Grandpa, with his usual dry wit, corrected her: “No, that’s a reefer.”

Suddenly, Aunt Lue was convinced—a reefer, in Charles’s car!

The scandal threatened to overshadow the holiday. Aunt Lue’s righteous outrage was immediate, launching into a lecture about the dangers of “reefers” and the nerve it took for me to leave one in my car. The possibility that I could be arrested seemed to hang in the air, feeding her indignation.

To put an end to the drama and protect my supposedly spotless reputation, my mom claimed the reefer was hers. The pressure shifted away from me, and Aunt Lue’s tirade refocused on my mother with renewed vigor.

It became an insufferable ordeal—Aunt Lue’s sense of right and wrong brooked no argument, and she carried herself as though she’d never stepped out of line in her life. I felt queasy from the weight of accusation and the overblown lecture.

Later, though, we laughed about it. My mother reminded me how she had taken the fall for something that wasn’t hers—nor mine, for that matter. It had belonged to some guy I’d met and quickly regretted entertaining.
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Still, the memory lingers, wrapped up in the scent of autumn and family—a story that time has softened around the edges.