Uncle Hiram
by Tomas Zandir
When I woke up this morning, I had a good idea for a story. It did not come to me in a dream as they sometimes do, but popped into my head as I was squinting at the shaft of sunlight piercing the blind that did not quite cover the window—the one with the piece of cardboard fitted into the space where years ago a pane was broken.
I hurried through my cereal, brushed my teeth, and sat down at the old laptop. I was inspired and ready to write. But then from the master bedroom I heard the familiar hacking cough. Uncle Hiram was awake. I closed the laptop.
Uncle Hiram was never easy to get along with. In five years, they didn’t leave the house except to go to the funerals of their old Army buddies. All day, they sat in their rocking chair smoking Luckies and swigging from a jug of some kind of rotgut liquor delivered by their pal Zack, who lived down Route 50 next to the high-tension tower, one of a line that marched over the golden fields from Goshen to Batavia.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Uncle Hiram bathed infrequently (they said hot water was bad for their impetigo) and they shaved by touch, refusing to use a mirror, so that most days their face looked like they suffered with mange. They favored a ratty plaid shirt and a pair of old Levi’s and it was all I could do to convince them to give them to me once a week to wash. During the hour and a half of the wash and dry cycles they would sit in their chair wrapped in a towel, which ensured that I would pay close attention to the washing process and return their shirt and pants to them as quickly as possible.
They took their meals on a tray I brought from the kitchen so they could eat while watching our small television set: the Today show at eight in the morning, One Life to Live at one in the afternoon, and Entertainment Tonight at seven-thirty in the evening.
All of these things made life with Uncle Hiram difficult, but not unbearable. I managed to take care of them and also make a good living at the Exxon station, which was fortunately located less than a mile from our apartment so that I could run home at lunchtime and then return to the station before Sylvia, the franchisee owner’s wife, came in at two, expecting me to be busy with oil changes and brake jobs.
No, what drove me crazy was that Uncle Hiram had literary pretensions. Of course, they never wrote a word, but they were a voracious reader of anything they could get their hands on—tabloid papers, magazines, pulp novels, literary fiction—you name it, they wanted to read it. They sent me to the library every Saturday with a heap of books to return and a list of titles that they wanted. They’d work through the stack all week and then the following Saturday they’d assemble the books into a pile and hand them to me with their new list.
I was the one who was the writer. Well, I tried to be a writer. Trouble was that Uncle Hiram knew I was a writer, and they would watch me from the corner of their eye while I sat at the old rolltop desk that Grandma—Hiram’s aunt—had left me when they died of emphysema ten years ago. I had told them to quit smoking, but they didn’t listen, and despite my persistent entreaties neither did Uncle Hiram.
There I’d sit, pecking away at the keyboard. Inevitably, just as my story was starting to emerge, Uncle Hiram would take a swig from the jug and bellow, “What’cha writing about?”
Dutifully, I would tell them. “It’s a story about a guy who kills their neighbor and buries the body under the floorboards,” or “A woman sees an old boyfriend on the street and pretends she doesn’t know them.”
Uncle Hiram would snort in disgust. “Sounds just like Raymond Carver!” or “Are you ripping off Steve Almond again? Pathetic!”
I would stare at my laptop. The juicy, wisdom-laden words I had happily set down would suddenly seem tasteless and dull, like soda that had been sitting open too long and lost its fizz. Yes—the characters were unoriginal, the prose tedious, the plot shopworn.
“Hey, do what you want,” shrugged Uncle Hiram. “I’m just doing you a favor. You’d feel like an idiot trying to publish something that was just a pale imitation of somebody else’s stuff.”
Sometimes I would try to re-work the characters—I’d make the traveling salesman a pro basketball player. Sometimes a change of setting seemed better—I’d move the action from a cabin in the woods to a fishing shack on the harbor. But these efforts inevitably made the damned things worse and more derivative. Like it says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. I proved it every day.
Out of sheer frustration and shame, I would close the laptop and go watch television in the kitchen. Eventually I’d come back, sit down, and complete the tedious story. After writing a couple of thousand words I’d send it off to whatever literary magazine was accepting submissions. Invariably, a few months later I’d receive the polite notice of refusal. “After careful consideration, we’re sorry we must decline….” So far, my so-called literary career consisted of hundreds of rejections and zero acceptances.
On this particular morning, as usual, I heard the hacking cough. I attended to Uncle Hiram and got them dressed and fed and I found their Luckies. They settled into their chair with a copy of The Goldfinch. I returned to the old roll top desk and opened the laptop.
Five minutes later Uncle Hiram set their book on their lap, took a slug from the jug, turned to me, and said, “What’cha writing about?”
But this time I was ready. I would throw them off the scent. I would lie. I would tell them a ridiculous parody of a story idea, one that had nothing to do with what I was writing. They’d make their usual pronouncement, I’d nod and look thoughtful, they’d be satisfied, and I’d be able to continue without the cancer of doubt eating at my brain.
“It’s about person named Dannie who has two heads. The heads always disagree because one head is a dog’s head while the other head is a cat’s head. They’re always fighting like—you know, cats and dogs.”
“Feline and canine heads on the same body?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And they live like this?”
“Yes. For many years.”
“Where?”
I looked at Uncle Hiram. I was not prepared for this. I hadn’t gotten that far in my fake story, because I assumed my Luckies-smokin’ critic would have already shot it down. “Um... they live in Washington, D.C.”
“Why our nation’s capital?”
I wanted to tell them that I chose the district because it was the most absurd location I could think of. But that would spoil the joke.
“Because it’s a parable about government. The guy with two heads has to live in Washington because it’s the center of American politics.”
“How so?”
I was becoming exasperated. This was not going as planned. I had a story to write, and it was not about a person with two heads.
“Because the dog head is a Republican and the cat head is a Democrat. You can imagine the tension between them. Always bickering. It’s very dark humor.”
Uncle Hiram guffawed and slapped his knee. “That’s rich! The dog head and the cat head arguing about politics! Kid, I think you’ve got something! May I read it?”
I swallowed hard. This had never happened before. Uncle Hiram had never once asked to read one of my stories.
“Um, sure.”
“When?”
“As soon as I get it done. Today, maybe tomorrow.”
Uncle Hiram nodded thoughtfully and picked up The Goldfinch. They took a drag from a Luckie and began to read. I heard them say to themself, “Dog head and cat head. Republican and Democrat. Don’t that beat all.” They chuckled softly.
I stared at the laptop and wrote the opening line:
“Election day came bright and clear. Dannie finished breakfast, put on their usual disguise, and drove to the voting station at the public library. Because the bickering between the dog head and the cat head had been nonstop for weeks, Dannie had been putting off deciding which candidate would get their vote. But now the moment of truth had arrived and there was no way to avoid it.”
I knew that Uncle Hiram was going to love this story.
I hurried through my cereal, brushed my teeth, and sat down at the old laptop. I was inspired and ready to write. But then from the master bedroom I heard the familiar hacking cough. Uncle Hiram was awake. I closed the laptop.
Uncle Hiram was never easy to get along with. In five years, they didn’t leave the house except to go to the funerals of their old Army buddies. All day, they sat in their rocking chair smoking Luckies and swigging from a jug of some kind of rotgut liquor delivered by their pal Zack, who lived down Route 50 next to the high-tension tower, one of a line that marched over the golden fields from Goshen to Batavia.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Uncle Hiram bathed infrequently (they said hot water was bad for their impetigo) and they shaved by touch, refusing to use a mirror, so that most days their face looked like they suffered with mange. They favored a ratty plaid shirt and a pair of old Levi’s and it was all I could do to convince them to give them to me once a week to wash. During the hour and a half of the wash and dry cycles they would sit in their chair wrapped in a towel, which ensured that I would pay close attention to the washing process and return their shirt and pants to them as quickly as possible.
They took their meals on a tray I brought from the kitchen so they could eat while watching our small television set: the Today show at eight in the morning, One Life to Live at one in the afternoon, and Entertainment Tonight at seven-thirty in the evening.
All of these things made life with Uncle Hiram difficult, but not unbearable. I managed to take care of them and also make a good living at the Exxon station, which was fortunately located less than a mile from our apartment so that I could run home at lunchtime and then return to the station before Sylvia, the franchisee owner’s wife, came in at two, expecting me to be busy with oil changes and brake jobs.
No, what drove me crazy was that Uncle Hiram had literary pretensions. Of course, they never wrote a word, but they were a voracious reader of anything they could get their hands on—tabloid papers, magazines, pulp novels, literary fiction—you name it, they wanted to read it. They sent me to the library every Saturday with a heap of books to return and a list of titles that they wanted. They’d work through the stack all week and then the following Saturday they’d assemble the books into a pile and hand them to me with their new list.
I was the one who was the writer. Well, I tried to be a writer. Trouble was that Uncle Hiram knew I was a writer, and they would watch me from the corner of their eye while I sat at the old rolltop desk that Grandma—Hiram’s aunt—had left me when they died of emphysema ten years ago. I had told them to quit smoking, but they didn’t listen, and despite my persistent entreaties neither did Uncle Hiram.
There I’d sit, pecking away at the keyboard. Inevitably, just as my story was starting to emerge, Uncle Hiram would take a swig from the jug and bellow, “What’cha writing about?”
Dutifully, I would tell them. “It’s a story about a guy who kills their neighbor and buries the body under the floorboards,” or “A woman sees an old boyfriend on the street and pretends she doesn’t know them.”
Uncle Hiram would snort in disgust. “Sounds just like Raymond Carver!” or “Are you ripping off Steve Almond again? Pathetic!”
I would stare at my laptop. The juicy, wisdom-laden words I had happily set down would suddenly seem tasteless and dull, like soda that had been sitting open too long and lost its fizz. Yes—the characters were unoriginal, the prose tedious, the plot shopworn.
“Hey, do what you want,” shrugged Uncle Hiram. “I’m just doing you a favor. You’d feel like an idiot trying to publish something that was just a pale imitation of somebody else’s stuff.”
Sometimes I would try to re-work the characters—I’d make the traveling salesman a pro basketball player. Sometimes a change of setting seemed better—I’d move the action from a cabin in the woods to a fishing shack on the harbor. But these efforts inevitably made the damned things worse and more derivative. Like it says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. I proved it every day.
Out of sheer frustration and shame, I would close the laptop and go watch television in the kitchen. Eventually I’d come back, sit down, and complete the tedious story. After writing a couple of thousand words I’d send it off to whatever literary magazine was accepting submissions. Invariably, a few months later I’d receive the polite notice of refusal. “After careful consideration, we’re sorry we must decline….” So far, my so-called literary career consisted of hundreds of rejections and zero acceptances.
On this particular morning, as usual, I heard the hacking cough. I attended to Uncle Hiram and got them dressed and fed and I found their Luckies. They settled into their chair with a copy of The Goldfinch. I returned to the old roll top desk and opened the laptop.
Five minutes later Uncle Hiram set their book on their lap, took a slug from the jug, turned to me, and said, “What’cha writing about?”
But this time I was ready. I would throw them off the scent. I would lie. I would tell them a ridiculous parody of a story idea, one that had nothing to do with what I was writing. They’d make their usual pronouncement, I’d nod and look thoughtful, they’d be satisfied, and I’d be able to continue without the cancer of doubt eating at my brain.
“It’s about person named Dannie who has two heads. The heads always disagree because one head is a dog’s head while the other head is a cat’s head. They’re always fighting like—you know, cats and dogs.”
“Feline and canine heads on the same body?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And they live like this?”
“Yes. For many years.”
“Where?”
I looked at Uncle Hiram. I was not prepared for this. I hadn’t gotten that far in my fake story, because I assumed my Luckies-smokin’ critic would have already shot it down. “Um... they live in Washington, D.C.”
“Why our nation’s capital?”
I wanted to tell them that I chose the district because it was the most absurd location I could think of. But that would spoil the joke.
“Because it’s a parable about government. The guy with two heads has to live in Washington because it’s the center of American politics.”
“How so?”
I was becoming exasperated. This was not going as planned. I had a story to write, and it was not about a person with two heads.
“Because the dog head is a Republican and the cat head is a Democrat. You can imagine the tension between them. Always bickering. It’s very dark humor.”
Uncle Hiram guffawed and slapped his knee. “That’s rich! The dog head and the cat head arguing about politics! Kid, I think you’ve got something! May I read it?”
I swallowed hard. This had never happened before. Uncle Hiram had never once asked to read one of my stories.
“Um, sure.”
“When?”
“As soon as I get it done. Today, maybe tomorrow.”
Uncle Hiram nodded thoughtfully and picked up The Goldfinch. They took a drag from a Luckie and began to read. I heard them say to themself, “Dog head and cat head. Republican and Democrat. Don’t that beat all.” They chuckled softly.
I stared at the laptop and wrote the opening line:
“Election day came bright and clear. Dannie finished breakfast, put on their usual disguise, and drove to the voting station at the public library. Because the bickering between the dog head and the cat head had been nonstop for weeks, Dannie had been putting off deciding which candidate would get their vote. But now the moment of truth had arrived and there was no way to avoid it.”
I knew that Uncle Hiram was going to love this story.
Tomas Zandir, under another professional name, is a full-time ghostwriter of novels and non-fiction books for private clients. Their short stories and poetry have been published in literary magazines including Echoes of Ink (Nov. 2024), The Chicago Story Press (Sept. 2024), The Missouri Review, Armchair Aesthete, The Bitter Oleander, The MacGuffin, and others. Tomas is a graduate of Tufts University (B.A., English), and they live in beautiful Gloucester, MA.