James Ross Kelly lives in Northern California. Mr. Kelly is a U.S. Army Veteran (1967-1971), Mr. Kelly was in the Army Security Agency and served in Eritrea, East Africa, where he was a teletype intercept operator. He has been a journalist for Gannet, a travel book editor, and had a score of labor jobs — the in-between, jobs you get from being an English major. He retired as a writer-editor for the Forest Service, where he spent the a decade in Oregon and Alaska respectively. He started writing poetry in college on the GI Bill, and after college continued and gave occasional readings in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980s. His poems and stories have appeared in Westwind Review, (Ashland, Oregon), Open Sky (Seattle), Siskiyou Journal (Ashland, Oregon), The Sun (Chapel Hill, NC); Don’t Read This (Ashland, Oregon), Table Rock Sentinel, (Medford, Oregon), Poetry Motel (Duluth, Minnesota), Poems for a Scorpio Moon & Others (Ashland, Oregon), The Red Gate & Other Poems, a handset letterpress chapbook published by Cowan & Tetley (1984, Vancouver, B.C.). In the past three years Silver Birch Press (Los Angeles) so glad is my heart (Duluth, Minnesota), Cargo Literary, (Prince Edward Island, Canada), Fiction Attic, Rock and Sling (Spokane, WA), Edify (Helena, AL) and Flash Fiction have all featured one or more of his stories.
She Owned a Restaurant Up in Bend
“Ever see a hanging Ernie?” Jack asked.
“Yep, my folks took me to one in Jacksonville,” Ernie said.
“I was about nine or ten. Spent the night, had a picnic.
‘I expect this will teach me a valuable lesson,’ was the feller’s last words.’ Ernie said.
“I don’t remember what he did,” Ernie said.
“Ernie did you ever see a Grizzly bear?” Jack asked.
“Nope, they was all kilt out by my time.” Ernie said, “Knew an old’ timer from Jacksonville that had been mauled by a grizzly bear, he said he was out with three fellers and he got attacked. The bear bit on him, and bit on him, and bit on him, then he played dead and the bear went away. He said the other fellers found him and started haulin’ him back to town through the brush, but he just hurt too bad. ‘Fellers,’ he said, ‘jest lay me on top that there gray brush and leave me be—I’m a goner.’
“So, Ernie said, “they left him there for dead. He said he stayed there on top of the gray brush for a long time, then got to feelin’ better and walked back to town.”
“How many whore houses were in Medford Ernie?” Jack asked.
“Six! There was six whorehouses in Medford.” Ernie said.
“Molly’s was my favorite.” Ernie said.
“Molly’s was right above the Hubbard Brothers Hardware store. I saw Molly about twenty-five years ago. She owned a restaurant up in Bend, still serving the public.” Ernie said.
“Were you born in this house Ernie?” Jack asked.
“Nope, across the Highway next to the road that goes up the hill to the mine. We had a two-room house there. The mine started to pay, and my parents built this house closer to the barn and the river. This here house was built in 1900. I barely remember the other place. This is mostly where I’ve lived except for the War. Lonely since my wife died, had to stop driving last year. Mrs. Ownby, gets me anywhere I need to go. My daughter comes down once a year from Salem. What? Oh, yeah, I fished a lot in the summertime, limit on trout? Oh, it was a hundred back then. Lots of times I caught one-twenty-five!”
“What did you do in the Great war Ernie? Jack asked.
“Machine gunner,” Ernie said.
“Mowed ’em down til they stopped comin’,” Ernie said.
“Ever climb Mt. Thielsen Ernie?” Jack asked.
“Six times,” Ernie wheezed, from an abrupt old man kind of certainty, and then he held up one hand with fingers extended and an upward thumb from the other hand to only waist height, and then let them down in an exhaustion of age.
“Last time was 1975,” Ernie said, looking off the precipice of his front porch, “I was 79.”