: David von Beck
: Coal
: David von Beck
: 9781609849054
: 1
: CHF 6.80
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 288
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Coal starts at the bottom-in the basement of an old Seattle house-where Ken, a 42-year-old bachelor, stumbles across a box of letters that his sister Cole had kept over the years. This discovery immediately brings Ken back to the day Cole died eight years ago, in that same home, at about the same age that Ken is now. But now Ken, who despite lacking the skills is intent on rebuilding the old family home, is also set on building a life. Relationships seem to fall upon him like accidents, and as Ken tries to make sense of love and sex and life, he finds it doesn't take much to ignite the fires in each of us, but no two fires burn the same. As Ken combs the letters from years ago, he stumbles into a web or secret relationships, confession, and deceit. And in his own life, his easygoing nature is about to get tested by a woman whose outward appearance conceals a wild side.

Chapter 1

 

It was late on a Tuesday that I found the box of letters.  I had finally confronted and hauled away most of the crap in the basement—pieces of lamps, sticky green curtains, and of course National Geographics by the ton.  Those trademark yellow-bordered covers, the vivid photographs of aboriginal women with lips and ears huge and heavy, laden with thick wooden jewelry, breasts drooping to their navels, all of which always made me wonder as a kid if there was more gravity in Africa.

Now, finally, I was just one water-stained Bekins Moving box away from reaching the water heater.

A hot shower.  It had been two December weeks since I’d moved in, and I had not felt water over 50 degrees.  And now the water heater was finally within striking distance.  But as I pried the crusty bottom of the box from the floor and dragged it away from the water heater, one of its corners split and suddenly I was ankle-deep in envelopes.  I picked one up and could feel the crispiness of time in the smooth, shiny paper.  Then I saw Cole’s name and this address, in my handwriting.  The postmark was Jan. 12, 1993.

No breath, and no noise.  And then suddenly I was panting.  I kneeled down, digging through the pile of letters and spreading them around me on the floor.  They were all addressed to my sister, from family, friends and people and places I didn’t know, or at least didn’t know that Cole knew.  That first letter I had picked up, the one from me, I read that one standing there in the heap of envelopes.

 

Hi again Cole,

 

The whole thing came undone for sure this time.  If you’d stop predicting the demise of my relationships, maybe they would stop demising!  Anyway, you can check young Deborah off the list.  She took my favorite shirt (the red one you hated) and her cat (the fat one I hated) and went to San Francisco to“find herself” or something.  Mom would be proud:  Deb’s parting comment was that I’m“just not freaky enough” for her.

She’ll blend in well in San Fran, I’m thinking.

So now I have to spend the rest of this New York winter in a cold and lonely bed.  That was one thing about Deborah: She ran hot.  It was like we never needed an electric blanket because she was this little heat source that spewed warmth under the covers.  I’m sure she’ll make some chilly hippie a happy man.  And to be realistic, she’s probably made me a happier man by leaving.  Now I can focus on that master’s thesis that keeps eluding me.

But enough about my cyclical love life.  I’m hoping the reason you haven’t written in two whole months is because you’ve been finishing your dissertation.  How’s it coming?  If you’re having trouble, just send me the rest and I’ll pass it on to the super in my building, a guy who thinks he knows every goddamn thing in the world.  Maybe he ca