No Longer As You Are

Modern Literature Magazine an international online magazine that has published writers who have been published in The New Yorker has published my short story, No Longer As You Are.  To escape the pandemic,  I wrote this story inspired by a memory I have from my teenage years working on Old Benny Smiths Farm.  It is my second published story.

Below is the link . I’d love to hear your responses.

No Longer As You Are – By Daniel Beer

Here is a review.

You are such a wonderful writer. I couldn’t stop reading this. Your attention to visual details made me feel like I could see the whole story. Did this really happen ? I always tell my girls that everyone has a story and while reading this I could see that Finn (you) was wise for his age and had a heart maybe not like others his age and took the time for someone who needed it . Thank you for sharing this with me!

Robin Lambert Mcintee

Finally! Flirting!

I’m in the liquor aisle deciding on what beer to buy. A woman in the cutest little jean shorts is sorta trailing me. She passes and stops in front of the Vodka and Gin. We both have our masks on. Boy, how do I flirt with masks on during a pandemic? But there’s a sexiness about her.
“I’d go with the vodka, ” I say. ” It works great against COVID, but I’d stay away from Lysol and Clorox.”
She laughs, a real laugh, and says “right.”
Even with her mask on I could tell she was blushing.
The masks added something, an unknown anticipation of what I don’t know. I took a picture of her in my head, her presence in case I would see her again without masks. Then and only then we would know.
Daniel Beer

ELEVATOR WITH A SIX-YEAR-OLD

 

In the elevator at the grocery store, I shared the ride with a family of three. The daughter, holding a pink lunch box was no higher than my waist. She quietly announced, “I’m six.”
“Me too, ” I said, ” I grew really fast.”
She glanced at her mom. The elevator door opened, and by chance, we were parked next to each other.
“If I’m six, am I allowed to drive?”
“Yes, because you’re big,” she answered.
“Then, you can drive too, because your six.”
“No, I’m little.”
“No, you’re not you’re big and strong,” I said. “You know why?” She shook her head, and her mom and dad paused as they were packing their groceries into the car. “Because in the elevator you started to talk to me, and that means you’re confident and strong, and big.” I could tell by her expression that she liked that. Her parents did too. Then, the girl told me she was going to the beach. That must be why she had her lunch box.

Little Lost German Boy, Found.

 

I received an email from the German Consulate Los Angeles that read.  “I am pleased to inform you that we have received your Certificate of Citizenship.”   A two year process to regain my German Citizenship that was given up by my parents at the age five to become a United States Citizen.  I remember wearing a suit, which meant it was an important day.  Bare white walls, white ceiling,  the lights bright.   I remember that moment, but I don’t remember your name.

At the age of two and a half Mom and I came to America from Germany.  Before our connecting flight to Rochester N.Y., where my new father was waiting, we landed at JFK.   I remember looking out the egg shaped plane window.   My second birthday was in Peising Germany a Bavarian village with only an onion domed church I could see from my Tante Hilda’s window.  I remember pedaling the green plastic  hollow bodied tractor truck I received for that birthday.  I remember this, but I don’t remember your name.

When I applied to regain my citizenship, I discovered that I was technically still a German Citizen.  It wasn’t my choice at the age of five to become an American Citizen.  Therefore it wasn’t my choice to give up my German Citizenship.  None of this guaranteed me regaining my citizenship.  Many times I had asked Mom about becoming a German Citizen again. “Oh no, I don’t think you can do that,” she said. “It would be impossible.”  She never talked about the old country, nobody in our family really did, which sends the message to a kid that is must be, “not okay.”   Much later I found out why the silence.  Mom had secrets back across the ocean that she had hoped were left under blankets of lies.  A child will lose who they are to  be a part of a family held together by secrets and lies.  Because that is its purpose,  that is how one survives.  With time the questions get answered,  the true pieces of the puzzle show the real picture.   The episodes of all the questions are too long to list.  Maybe this is why I remember these things.  But I don’t remember your name.

The German Consulate is on Wilshire and Crescent, a short drive from where I live.   I wore my best dress shirt, and was clean shaven.  Surprisingly, I was calm and excited.  I hadn’t told anyone in my family.  I didn’t want it to be taken away again.  Today was my day, I was moving forward by going back. I didn’t come to America in steerage.  I came here on a plane as a boy who lost his first language, which I was learning again.  In the waiting room everyone spoke German, and much to my delight I understood  most of it.  When it was my turn to approach the glass divider,  I greeted the woman in German.  Then in English I told here why I was there.                                                                          “How cool  is that?” she asked.                                                                                                            I almost laughed, I was smiling so much.

She handed me the light yellow certificate of citizenship.  I recognized at the top of the document the BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSHLAND, and the coat of arms of the Black Eagle for “Federal Eagle.”   It’s on my child passport I still have from when I came to America.   I remember this.  In the middle of the certificate above my birthdate, and the city where I was born Regensburg, I see it. I’ve seen it a million times, but it felt like the first time I see the whole of it.  Mein Name.

Ich heisse Christian Daniel Beer