‘Able to Forward’

Raymond Jean is an 11th-grade student at Canterbury School. Outside the classroom, Raymond channels his energy into community service and business management related activities

Able to Forward

Fred was forty-four years old and lived four blocks east of the beach, across the street from a liquor store with the latest lotto numbers blinking in a neon sign in the window. He often wondered if he should buy a ticket, because he very much wanted his life to change, particularly when it came to female companionship. But as soon as the thought of investing two bucks in something that wasn’t likely to happen entered his mind, it was gone, as if it realized it was pointless to linger. He accepted this with a careful smile, as he did everything else that came his way.

Speaking of not lingering, it was easy for Fred to look in the mirror and notice what he figured every woman saw when they waited next to him at the deli counter in the grocery store. His hair was prematurely gray around his ears, his stomach protruded over the edge of his underwear like a bear cautiously emerging from hibernation, and his nose was crooked from a tumble from the top of a jungle gym as a child. At his last physical exam, Fred learned that his bad cholesterol was a bit too high, but he hadn’t yet made the diet and behavior modifications that his doctor had suggested, like increasing his intake of sardines and walnuts. Fred much preferred thick banana muffins and lunchmeat sandwiches with extra mayo.

He was the low man on the totem pole in his office, with no logical reason to be hunched in a cubicle in the middle of his coworkers. So, he worked his clerical job from home. 

This was altogether fine, because Fred was an artist. He felt a dull ache in his stomach when he wasn’t surreptitiously sketching fellow patrons in a coffee shop or painting on an easel in his apartment, listening to wistful Nick Drake CDs. Although he had only found sporadic success in the gallery world in Los Angeles, with a solo show more than eight years ago and not much after that, his identity as a creative trumped any loyalty to his job entering names and figures into Excel spreadsheets. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful; the job was just an avenue to sustain him, and remaining home during the weekdays gave him freedom to create art. It counterbalanced his loneliness, but not always.

Before starting work on a new painting that morning, Fred decided to go to the post office and mail the gift he’d found for his sister. 

Abby lived on the other side of the country, in Brooklyn. She was an actress with nearly a dozen movie and TV credits to her name. Nearly all were appearances so brief that when Fred tried to explain them to people who knew his sister, they always said, “Wait. What was that part again? I must have missed her.” Yet, Abby continued to find work in front of the camera and only had to work part time as a server at a Tibetan café in Cobble Hill to pay the bills. Fred was extremely proud of her.

Along with making art, Fred loved thrift stores; the old and the gently used interested him much more than what was happening now. On his last trip to a shop in Santa Monica, he’d found a worn horror paperback with a die-cut cover. The book was about a young couple who move into a haunted lighthouse infested with killer crabs and the restless spirit of a woman murdered there a hundred years before. Fred was positive that his sister, who was an avowed horror fan and had a huge 1970s paperback collection, had never heard of it. 

He slipped the book into a padded envelope, along with a note that expressed his admiration for her and a few overly optimistic sentences about the current state of things. Leaving his apartment, he turned right, then passed an empty parking space under the dingbat-style building. 

Unopened mail was strewn haphazardly across it.

Fred bent down to take a closer look. There were bills and credit card applications and even a travel magazine. Each was addressed to J. Parker, and Fred recognized the street name as one that was only two or three blocks away. He wondered how the mail could end up there, cast across a dried-up blot of motor oil. Was it stolen? Did the postal carrier drop it there – mistakenly, or on purpose? What occurred at 861 Pacific Avenue, Apartment 3? 

It was a crime to interfere with mail that wasn’t addressed to him. But what if the person needed help?

The possibilities looped back and forth in his mind. He might be a small-scale hero, for the very first time. He might make a difference in J. Parker’s life. But—

The infuriatingly tall castle wall that had always blocked him from making daring choices did its job, once again. Leaving the mail where it lay with a heavy sigh, Fred got in his dented Celica and drove to the post office. The promise of adding an important texture to his life, a watercolor wash that could bring new moments into sharp focus and relief, remained just out of reach. 

Despite his disappointment, Fred had no problem getting down to work that night; his routine of laying out his paints and canvases and picking out the right CD to play on his boombox was an enormous source of comfort. He had purchased a found photo for a dollar from a box on the counter of a used bookstore. It was a Polaroid of a middle-aged Black woman with enormous glasses and a substantial Afro, standing at the top of a set of steps that Fred thought could lead to a church. Her hands were on her hips. She wore a light green sweatshirt with the name VIVIAN in striking gold letters across it, as if she were announcing her arrival. 

Fred admired her boldness and her confidence in who she was, as if she were ready to challenge anyone who suggested otherwise. But as he sketched the outline of the woman, he couldn’t stop wondering about J. Parker, and if the spilled mail was still in the empty parking space outside. Did someone – maybe a spurned lover – steal the mail and drop it there with malicious intent? Did J. Parker die and the postal carrier – fed up with the overstuffed mailbox – decide to dump the mail on the ground for the world to see? Was this one clue in a true crime case that would soon show up as a Netflix limited series?  

What would it be like to become J. Parker, just for a day? Would it bring him confidence? An ability to charge forward in a joust, his lance held bravely forward as he sat astride his noble steed?

He sat straight up in bed for at least half an hour that night, listening to the building creak and groan. Cars sped by periodically, filled with young people undoubtedly on their way home from raucous parties at the beach or club-hopping in Hollywood. 

Fred pushed aside the tangled sheets and shuffled over to his studio, which was just a corner of the main room in his apartment. He examined the canvas in progress. The proportions seemed off to him. He wondered if Vivian was the woman’s real name. 

The clock on the microwave revealed that it was nearly four. Fred didn’t feel tired, just unsettled. He thought about taking a flashlight outside to check if the spilled mail was still there, but instead, he turned on the TV and settled on a 1980s low-budget film about rival health club owners who enter an aerobics competition, to settle bragging rights. Fred had been a child during that decade and was continually drawn to its garish neon colors, which often found their way into his paintings. 

Hours later, he opened his eyes to the insistent jangle of his cell phone. Shafts of sunlight found their way through the window blinds and slanted across his chest.

“Shit,” Fred said, embarrassed that he’d overslept. Every Sunday morning, he took a long, leisurely walk along the Venice Boardwalk, then further north, through Santa Monica. He listened to podcasts about artists, both former and current, to try to soak up as much information and inspiration as he could. One street about four blocks from the beach had no parking restrictions, so he liked to get there early to secure a spot. Further along that street, short bridges crossed the canals, and he sometimes spotted dagger-billed egrets searching for food.

He picked up the phone from the coffee table. “Hello?”

“Freddy,” a familiar voice said. “I need help.” 

Fully awake now, Fred listened as his sister spun him her latest tale of desperation and woe, this time centering on a comics store employee named Tyrone and a case of Hungarian vodka. He smiled at the twang that periodically crept into her voice; it reminded him of home in West Virginia. 

“Yes,” he said, close to a dozen times. “I understand.” Never offering his advice unless she asked for it, he simply acted as a sounding board as her story careened over several days, four out of five New York City boroughs and her impulsive adoption of a cross-eyed shelter dog named Sampson. As he listened, he made himself a cup of instant coffee and ate a bowl of cereal that contained more than eighty-one percent of his recommended sugar allowance for that day. 

Abby abruptly stopped talking after nearly two hours. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why?” Fred asked. “What for?”

“Nothing. I mean, thanks for being here,” his sister said. “Thanks for listening. You might not realize it, but you make a difference.”

Fred blinked. “Really?” 

“I love you,” Abby said. “Next time, I want to hear how your art is going. Talk to you soon.”

Fred sat there for a while, listening to the TV blaring through the wall of the apartment next door. It was rare for his sister to tell him she loved him. He wondered if he had done anything differently this time around that had prompted it, but he couldn’t think of what it could be. 

As he placed his cereal bowl and spoon in the sink, Fred finally decided on a course of action. He would deliver the missing mail to the correct address. 

He changed out of his sweatpants and West Virginia University t-shirt, which were his typical sleep clothes, and decided on a handsome royal blue button-down shirt and khakis. He combed his hair and washed his face with cold water. Then he found the scrap of paper where he’d written down J. Parker’s address. He looked it up on the Internet and discovered that it was indeed just a five-minute walk from his building. 

It might be best to play things straight. Fred would tell J. Parker that he had discovered the mail on the ground. Because there seemed to be bills and other important envelopes, he’d thought it best to return them right away. If there were hints that something suspicious had transpired at the apartment, Fred would sprint home, as fast as he could, and perhaps call the police. 

He took one last look at himself in the bathroom mirror and tried to tamp down his persistent cowlick, with no success. Then he left his apartment and went outside. 

The mail was gone. 

Fred felt like he’d entered a movie right in the middle and then was forced to leave after only ten minutes. 

Yet again.

He tried to sit down and work on his painting of Vivian, but too much still churned inside. Among countless other questions, he wondered if Abby’s latest drunken adventure would be enough to finally convince her to put the Hungarian vodka away, at least for a day. And he wondered how long it would be until he woke up next to a woman again. 

Fred drove to the beach late that afternoon. He found a perfect parking spot and queued up the latest episode of a podcast about current trends in contemporary art. Earbuds in place, he walked his regular route down to the beach, then turned north. 

But as he strode past a mix of homeless people and well-heeled condominium residents, a cold breeze blew in hard from the ocean as the front moved inland and the sky grew rapidly dark. Even though it was a path he’d walked dozens of times, Fred felt lost. 

Removing his earbuds, he turned abruptly around, deciding to head home before the rain came. He turned off the main street and onto the sidewalk, following his usual path along the main canal, but everything seemed different because it was so dark. Christmas lights decorated the expensive houses and the footbridges that connected one side of the canal to the other. A lone duck frantically paddled its way close to the grassy bank, perhaps agitated by the approaching storm. 

Music carried over from somewhere down the canal; there were heavy guitar and drums, and even the plaintive yowl of a singer. Fred looked ahead and saw that four different houses were hosting parties. He had never seen that happen on the canal. 

Suddenly, there were people everywhere. There were floppy-haired young men dressed in tailored suits and older women with pinched cheeks and altered noses. There were teenagers who looked to be straight off the set of a K-Pop music video and men who were his parents’ age who could be financial advisors or senior partners at law firms. All of these people ambled up and down the narrow sidewalk, chatted in small groups on the bridge and walked in and out of homes with open gates. Through the huge bay windows of one house, he saw a pine tree decorated with blinking lights and a TV that played How the Grinch Stole Christmas as partygoers selected canapés off huge silver plates. 

It would be very easy for him to enter one of the houses and pretend like he’d been invited. Fred wore a sweatshirt, jeans and old sneakers that were spattered with paint, but this was Venice, where there were very few rules regarding fashion. This seemed like an expedition that Abby would gladly undertake; she was constantly telling him to take more risks. This moment felt right, or as right as it could ever be. 

The gathering with the Christmas tree seemed too sedate and the guests not in his tax bracket, so Fred found his way across the footbridge – noticing the painterly reflection of the string of lights on the surface of the water – and lingered outside the large house where he heard the band. He waited near the open gate, holding onto the post until his queasy stomach settled. 

Now is finally the time. 

Two young women, chattering excitedly, walked past him and entered through the gate. Fred slipped in right behind them and followed them into the front yard of a two-story home resplendent with more holiday lights. 

A small band was indeed playing on an improvised stage, under a eucalyptus tree. Although it was quite cold, the lead singer wore only a tank top and basketball shorts and sang passionately about how Christmas meant nothing “without you here. And P.S. – screw you.” He had greasy hair and wore a baseball cap backwards, like the angry skaters on the boardwalk.  

More than a dozen guests milled around in the yard, inelegantly guzzling beer out of bottles and smoking marijuana with a carefree abandon that Fred admired. He felt completely out of his element, but he sucked in his belly and approached a woman standing next to a large clay planter full of succulents. 

“Hi,” Fred said, his voice a jittery near-whisper. “I’m Fred. How’s it going?”

The woman stared at him with a look of extreme distaste. Her messy blond hair fell into her eyes and her black leather skirt was the shortest Fred had ever witnessed in person. Instead of replying, the woman sighed deeply, then turned and went inside the house. 

Thunder rumbled. The lead singer looked at the sky with a worried glance but kept yowling. 

Fred spotted a man and a woman around his age, in the middle of a heated conversation. 

“Good evening,” Fred said. “Have you ever encountered killer crabs?”

They both turned to look at him, mystified that he had disturbed their discussion. “You look like my accountant,” the woman finally said. She wore a beret and a thick, cable-knit sweater, like someone from a hot chocolate commercial on TV. 

“What happened to your nose?” the man asked. “Did you get in a fight?”

“I fell off a jungle gym,” Fred said, immediately regretting telling them the truth. He thought his broken nose made him look tough, and he always wondered if he should make up a more masculine reason for the injury. 

The couple exchanged a disappointed glance, then moved past him. 
Fred was surprised to find tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He wondered if it was a sign that he was on the right track. 

A young woman in her mid-30s sat on a deck chair on the porch, nodding along to the music. She had kinky hair and graceful legs that were evident in her short, flowered dress. Fred thought she looked like an activist for a humanitarian cause of great importance. 

Making his way up the steps, he maneuvered his way next to her, taking care not to seem aggressive. He watched her hum along to the music. Her posture relaxed with some visible disappointment when the song ended. 

“Hi,” Fred said, his voice a bit more confident now. “What’s the band’s name?”

The woman looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and deep brown. Fred immediately wanted to paint her portrait. 

“Pulsebeat,” she said. “Isn’t that weird? Apparently, they’re named after some obscure Eighties movie about aerobics.”

Fred felt his heart race. He wondered if this was a positive sign that their conversation was meant to be. “I’ve seen that film,” he said.

“Really? It sounded like an urban legend to me.” She sized him up from head to toe. Fred knew this was part of what happened at parties and similar social events, but it still made him feel highly uncomfortable. “How do you know the hosts?” she asked.  

Before he answered the woman, he sucked in a breath, then let it out, slowly. “I don’t,” he admitted. “I was just walking by and thought I’d stop in and see what was happening.” 

“No way,” she said, smiling like they’d just shared a special secret. “Same as me.”

Adrenaline coursed through his body and a matching grin crossed his face. Fred realized with newfound clarity that then was the perfect time to keep talking and learn more. “Do you know anyone named J. Parker?” he asked.

Chris Stanton is a creative writer and artist in Los Angeles. His first novel Kings of the Earth, the story of a haunted surfing town on Lake Michigan, was published in 2019. His short stories have appeared in more than a dozen literary magazines and his “novel in stories” Dandelion Crossing arrived in 2025. Kirkus Reviews called it “a heartfelt and deeply human collective portrait set in a palace of consumerism.”