As part of my site redesign, I’m reposting all the short stories I had up on the old site, but because of some reformatting, I’m doing them one at a time and adding some commentary about them as well. I’m starting with “Kimberly Road” because it seems to get the most traffic. It comes up when people ask Google or Jeeves how to compose blues songs, which surprises me. But it is about the blues, so I guess it fits.
The idea for “Kimberly Road” came to me as I was driving from Dallas to Austin back in 1994. I was listening to a Lightnin’ Hopkins CD and the story just started forming. It was one of those instances where I stepped on the gas to hurry home and get to my computer while the story was still coming together in my head. I worked on it for a few days, and the day I finished turned out to be a good day. It was the day I met a woman who would introduce me to one of her co-workers whom I would eventually marry.
I picked the story up a few years later and re-wrote the character of Jake, basing him heavily on a man with whom I worked for a short time. His name was Willie and almost everyday he’d say, “Now see here young man, der’s two kindsa people out there. Them that’s happy at home, and them that ain’t. Them that ain’t is about ten percent and they like to make ever’body else unhappy. So you got to watch out for that other ten percent, see?” Everyday. Some days it would go up to 20%, but usually it hovered around ten.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
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