Mr. DeShaw's Sculpture

by Jeff H.

About the Author: Jeff H. is a high school English teacher. He blogs with his wife, a dietitian, at https://batchandnarrative.com/ about writing, food, and everything else.

Excerpt

Mr. DeShaw had just returned from abroad.

His travels were “epic,” as the kids say. What people specifically knew about Mr. DeShaw’s comings and goings, however, only came from his groundskeeper, who liked to gossip about the tickets to exotic locals he’d find in Mr. DeShaw’s trash. It was agreed that Mr. DeShaw earned money from properties somewhere between Miami and Tampa. All other facts about the man, however, were the result of observation alone. Mr. DeShaw was presumed to be in his seventies, since he was wrinkled and wore thick glasses. Mr. DeShaw was a bachelor, as no one had ever heard of him having a spouse. And Mr. DeShaw was a bit standoffish.

“Beautiful morning,” Beatrice Berry, Mr. DeShaw’s neighbor, said to him after she moved in.

“Get stuffed,” Mr. DeShaw replied. It was the same greeting he’d given to Sarah Clements five years before. And it was a greeting that stuck out in an otherwise polite strip of unincorporated Gulf-coast beach.

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