"Cloud Break" for @rhondak

Apparently MaM isn't going to make the official announcement they promised us, so I'm editing this now anyway. It may not be as nice and elegant as I officially planned, because I'm frustrated they haven't followed through as promised in a reasonable time, although we've gotten a statement on Discord.

Last week's MaM pledges are forgiven because of confusion with the rules. They have promised to make things clearer moving forward, but it obviously hasn't happened yet.

Because of these issues, I am exercising my right to have my pledge forgiven. The funds from this post will instead go to SFT. If anyone wants to un-upvote this post because of this change, I respect that 100% and will not bear anyone ill will for doing so. I am only sorry I am making this change so close to the deadline, but I'd been awaiting an official announcement I could link to, but now I'm tired of waiting.

Because I believe full clarity is best in this situation, I am leaving my original post unedited below this break, except for deleting the tag that is no longer relevant.

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I pledge to donate the SDB income from the upvotes on this post to @msp-makeaminnow. I nominate @rhondak to be made. I could spend hours writing about the wonderful things she does, but I want to keep it simple and to the point. Rhonda wants steemit to be a great home for fiction writers and she supports that with #fiction-workshop where we can get together and write and talk writing. If it weren't for her personally getting me here, I wouldn't be on steemit and I wouldn't be writing.

So here's a story in her honor, with an extra thanks to @carolkean who planted the idea in my brain so it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it and who edited it thoroughly in a rush last night. I had planned another story for MaM, but it is delayed in editing and I refuse to post anything less than QUALITY in Rhonda's honor. I hope this is good enough to do her loving soul justice.

This piece is additionally entered in GMuxx's Art Prompt Contest

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So I finally made it. James leaned back in his folding chair then caught himself as it tried to collapse under him. Typical for this podunk town where he grew up. Couldn't even spring for decent folding chairs when the prodigal son returns. The platform itself was just plywood on top of old pallets. Shabby as always.

The town mayor was droning on about something and the clouds were building. Just his luck that the drought would finally break today. Yeah, it's great that it might rain and all, but does it have to come today? The day he'd finally get some decent attention out of these folks.

Take the overweight, half-bald blob over there. Mr. Mayor, Andrew Wright, had once been the bane of James's junior high and high school years. James had been thin and gawky and pimply. Andrew was athletic and made the football team. Not the quarterback or anything, but he was part of the team that brought home the state championship senior year. Whereas James was just... smart. When a teacher said James's grades had set the curve, Andrew and his pals made sure James paid for it. Cornered him out behind the bleachers after school and beat him good.

James rubbed the bump in his nose. Never did heal right. And his Dad? When he came home all beat up, he was proud of him. Said it was "bout time you acted like a man." No point wasting money on a doctor for a broken nose. "It'll heal on its own," Dad had said.

But look at Andrew now. All the muscle turned to flab. Working up a sweat just talking. Hard to believe he was the mayor of Podunk--the best they had to offer.

How long did an introduction take, anyway? Andrew seemed to babble on and on about "the good old days." Finally, he said, "I'm handing this over to the poet himself, our very own James Sparks."

James rose to stand behind the podium, shaking Andrew's hand on the way. He gripped both sides of the raw wood to discretely dry Andrew’s sweat from his own hands as he looked over the crowd. His mother sat front and center, but his father was nowhere to be seen.

"Thank you everyone for this welcome. It's good to be back in Fairfield, Ohio, after all these years. But to get straight to what you've been waiting for, a personal favorite, Broken Dreams."

"Between you and I..." James paused, distracted by a disturbance in the crowd. A small old man rose out of a wheelchair, waving his attendant away with a cane, and approached the stage.

Closing his eyes to refocus, James continued. "It was built on a lie."

Blows rained onto his head. He opened his eyes.

The old man stood beside him on the platform and beat him about the head with his cane. "I taught you better than that." The blows continued. "Between you and me."

James wrapped his arms around his head "B-b-but..." James hadn't stuttered in years. "B-b-but I needed it to rhyme!"

The man switched from beating with the cane to poking. "All those years, you were my best student. I drag myself here to hear you read and this is how you pay me back? With bad grammar?"

Andrew sniggered from his seat behind the podium. The teacher turned his cane on Andrew, whacking his face so hard that his nose bled. "How dare you laugh at him? Don't think I didn't know what you were up to back then, fatso." He turned his piercing blue eyes back to James as Andrew slipped away.

James tried to place the old man. His voice was crackly with age. The hair was white. Skin hung sagging on the short, stocky skeleton frame. But that gaze was familiar. "Mr. Schultz? Seventh grade English?"

"About time, boy. I told you I'd come after any of you if you forgot my lessons!" Mr. Schultz gestured madly with his cane, but at least it wasn't hitting James. "And you of all of my students I thought I could trust to remember."

James lowered his arms cautiously. "I didn't forget. I just needed it to rhyme." He shrugged.

Mr. Schultz's cane rammed him dead center on the chest. "Now, boy. Recite them now. I told you I'd demand them!"

Them? What was them? Then the memory came back. The oddly shaped classrooms, only three desks in each row. The ancient green chalkboard, a bit cracked here and there and hard to clean. "Someday when I'm old and gray, you'll come to visit me," Mr. Schultz had said. "And if you can't recite all twenty-three auxiliary verbs, I'll beat you about the head with my cane."

James sighed. "I remember, Mr. Schultz. Here, let me get you a chair." Mr. Schultz was one of the teachers who believed in him, giving him extra reading and not hassling him with busy work when he was bored. Once the old man was settled comfortably, James took the podium again.

"Now, in honor of Mr. Schultz, the twenty-three auxiliary verbs." He cleared his throat. "Am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been. Have, has, had. Do, does, did. Can, could; shall, should; will, would. May, might, must."

As he finished, sunlight broke through. He looked up. The clouds had broken in a perfect ring just above the platform. He looked at Mr. Schultz. In the bright sun, it looked like his eyes were glistening. And his artificial white teeth sparkled in the sunlight.

[bottom picture credit to @torico. It's the picture for the art prompt. Sorry I had to edit to add this. I meant to do it initially.]

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