COUCH MATINEES

Frank Stevens was normally a genial man. If you asked people who knew him they would say that Frank would be the last person to get into trouble with the law.

Truth be told, Frank had never been in trouble before, and as we meet him driving down the interstate early Saturday morning. he is singing along to the music.
Frank leaned down to work the CD player in his car.

Prior to starting off on this trip he has stopped and picked up some new music. There is nothing like cruising along at 70 MPH with the sun roof open; listening to some good rock and roll, Frank thought to himself.

After graduating college, it was back to mom and dad's for a couple of years to get some dough together. Hey our first job paid a whopping $7,500.00 a year.

Then about a year later we got offered a job with a huge salary... never would we have to worry about money again...$11,000.00! 

When we last left our intrepid New Yorker, THE COUCH, he was living with his girlfriend , his second roommate, and his roommate’s girlfriend in the bedroom plus loft on 22nd Street in Manhattan.

He began visiting the local bar that had been his “home away from home” throughout his college years and afterward.

He began chatting with women he rode the train with.

He spent time in NYC on the weekends when possible and also going out to the Hampton’s on the weekends when it was summer.

The party was in Pennsylvania...a small town in the middle of nowhere. The summer had been going great. Working as a life guard at the local pool, the tan was a solid bronze and he had met a few nice ladies (girls) who admired him more for the fact that he was a lifeguard then his looks.

At 19, who cared why they liked him, all he cared about was he had dates most night of the week.

So, back to the party...he was meeting his friends in Westchester at Jamie's house. They were all planning on driving together and planned to have some fun before even getting to the party. There was Gary, who had come down from upstate NY

As Charles Jordan left the cab at LAX, he looked back and sighed knowing he was leaving the warmth of LA for a 10” blizzard in Boston.

Smiling, Charles counted the eighteen days before his two week vacation to the Dominican Republic with his current girlfriend Lisa. Fourteen days of lying around, golf, swimming in the pool, snorkeling in the blue waters of the Caribbean, food & drink and Lisa. They could have rented a smaller villa then “Casa Cosmopolitana,” with its three bedrooms, but Charles wanted a pool and to be near the golf course...

Paul Angelino grew up in the Bronx, NY. His family had been in the Bronx for three generations, ever since his great grandfather and great grandmother had sailed over on a crowded, filthy ship to find a better life in the “land of opportunity” in America in 1920. Nineteen year old newlyweds, sailing into New York harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty, Giovanni and Amelia Angelino held each other tight and cried tears of joy.


Paul had visited Ellis Island in 2002 to view their names on the “Wall of Honor” after having their names added the year before. It gave him chills to see his great grandparents honored with tens of thousands of other people who made their way to the United States over the years.

It was a beautiful spring day. The songs of the sea birds and the crashing of the waves below Lookout Park were broken by the anguished scream as the body tumbled through the air. Arms and legs kicking and flailing, as if trying to stop the fall…the scream finally ending as the body met the rocks on the base of the cliff and a wave washed over it.

Two days later, Sheriff Flynn and two of his deputies were crawling over the rocks from the nearby beach to reach the body. When they did, Deputy Stanfield immediately turned and lost his McDonalds lunch into the bay.

The first thing he noticed looking in the mirror was the pallid yellow cast of his skin. The next thing was the two black dots in the middle of the seas of red that were his eyes. The palm of his right hand traced his jaw line feeling the stubble of his unshaven face.

When was the last time he had shaved? Andy Simons could not remember. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten either. Looking in the mirror at himself, he wondered how much longer he could go on.

He looked at the mantle above the fireplace and sighed. The space next to the plant was vacant. No, not just vacant, there was a hole…a void, a hollowness that he could not believe.

The figurine was the most beautiful piece he had ever laid eyes on. That day, two years ago when he was ambling through the shops was beautiful, sun shining, the sky a rich cloudless blue…he will always remember the day, no matter how many more he walked the earth.

Not looking for anything special, he was just enjoying himself, treating himself to a day alone.