SOUNDTRACK:
[READ: December 13, 2022] “Not a Donut”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth time reading the Calendar. I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable. Here’s what they say this year
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 13. Venita Blackburn, author of How to Wrestle a Girl, never forgets to like and subscribe.
I enjoyed everything about this story until the end, when it got very real and broke the bubble that the story had created.
Dan Conway’s wife left him and his son Silus. Dan was ordinary but confident. he was sixty and Silus was an adult as well. But Silus was diagnosed with high needs on the autism spectrum. So Dan rarely allowed Silus to be on his own. Silus rarely spoke more than a few catchphrases (like “Not a Donut”) which Dan knew how to interpret.
Dan had started going to New Light Missionary Baptist church a few months earlier. It had gotten three and a half stars which was Dan’s sweet spot (he didn’t trust four stars or above, figuring they must be fake, because who could ever perform that well at anything).
After one Sunday, Dan learned that he could leave Silus for the young adult session and the ladies would look after him.
He seemed to really hit it off with Sis. Wilson. There’s a wonderful moment where she startles him while he is watching Silus from behind a palm tree.
“Jesus shit,” yelled Dan.
Sis. Wilson slapped her thigh, laughing as he began to apologize for the language. “Jesus wept,” she replied.
There’s some background on Dan and Silus that really Fleshes out what a good man Dan is.
There’s also a scene where Dan tries t o get Sis. Wilson to work out at the gym. It’s during this session that she asks him why he didn’t go to a white church (I’m not sure from context clues if I was supposed to realized the racial implications in the story already).
Later on when Dan tries to scare Sis. Wilson the way she did to him earlier, it does not go well. And that made me very sad.
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