A Rock And A Hard Place

Pain shot through her and she shot right back with all 7 dirty words you cannot, or at least could not say on television. The wrinkled metal has her pinned to the rusty metal and a jagged shard of the latter is furrowing a row down her right thigh.

Rounding a curve below Berthoud Pass she hit a patch of sand and went into a skid. She steered into it and almost recovered but the rear wheels broke free and in passing her, turned her skid into a spin. The Porsche performed a series of near perfect pirouettes over a long downhill stretch. A thing of beauty if viewed as a spectacle, though points would surely be deducted for trajectory. Kissing the sheer rock face of the canyon wall ground the headlights and front bumper into a silver smear until a small boulder grabbed a fender and wadded the car up like a gum wrapper.

There was just enough momentum left to pinball the modified custom once more across the two lane where it came finally to rest with the front passenger side wheel dangling in space over what would be regarded as a breath-taking panarama under any circumstances.

The cliff’s edge erodes beneath her and the crumpled Carerra teeters a degree closer to oblivion. She tries to compensate by straining to shift her weight into the cavity called a backseat on a 911. With each new lunge the finely crafted German plowshare tills another meaty inch and she cries out with another howling barrage of expletives.

She’s been between a rock and hard place before. Wile E. Coyote has survived worse. The view is spectacular.

Kingpin

Tuesday morning Kingpin Roulade looked in his
bathroom mirror and decided it was time for a new look. An impulsive man, he
began by shaving off his eyebrows. The resulting change in his appearance was
significant but not at all what he’d hoped for. No, he missed his eyebrows straight
away and he wanted them back. He was not inexperienced in the art of do it
yourself barbering. Having on the spur of the moment lowered his own ears on
more than one occasion, he knew that the secret to success was just to keep
evening it up until it looks deliberate. Before breakfast Tuesday morning,
Kingpin shaved off most of his beard, leaving only two crescent shaped patches on
his right cheek and jaw; one arched quizzically as if to ask, “Now just how the
heck did that happen?”

For The Birds

Harry B. Sanderford

Ray jerks his head around quickly and sees nothing but the same sad drinkers. He’s attended too many of these wakes over the last couple of years. Each time he reminds himself to begin living each day as if it were his last. Life’s so unpredictable. Just look at Miles, or Frosty before him. Nobody ever sees it coming.  Well, maybe you could see it coming for Frosty. The point is, life is short, man. Nobody on his death bed, regrets not working more. You only go around once, so stop and smell the roses. Clichés all, sure, but he means it each time. And each time, as time goes by, best intentions fade and life falls back into dull routine. It’s not so bad really, it’s comfortable. Living each day like it’s your last is exhausting. If you spent every day climbing mountains or jumping out of airplanes, you might truly wish to spend your last day in your bathrobe eating freezer pizza and watching Netflix. He whips his head back around only to see Miles’ Uncle Paul hoist his hi-ball. Ray nods and returns the salute.


Lately he’s been catching flashes in his peripheral vision, fleeting glimpses he can never catch in full, spectral shadows scuttling just out of sight. They began right after Frosty twisted his motorcycle into a mesquite stump down in old Mexico. Ray could not explain their nature; not visions exactly, but if not visionary, surely cautionary. It would be loco to speak of them, so he keeps them to himself. A sparrow (or was it a bat?) darts from the corner of his eye too fast to draw a bead on but trails in its slipstream a foreboding of gathered vultures roosting beyond the periphery.  He tosses the last inch of whisky back and slams his glass down on the bar with a resounding bang. Now, all the other heads in attendance swing around.


He has everyone’s undivided attention, so it’s as good a time as any. He wants to say something about his friend. Something uplifting he hopes, but it is not what’s in his heart.  He considers and rejects standard platitudes. He especially hates that consolation prize: At least he died doing what he loved. 


Ray had been first to find Frosty. Well not the first exactly. He couldn’t have been more than a few minutes behind when he rode up to find Frosty crumpled in a lifeless heap. The carrion birds were already on the ground, waiting for him to cool. He pulled his cell from his back pack and called Miles, told him to bring the truck. Then he pulled his pistol from the pack and shot every buzzard already on the ground and each new one drawn to the carcasses as they landed. He had to reload.


Miles drowned on a head high day at Calafia, a break he knew well and a swell that was big enough to be fun but not particularly dangerous for a surfer of Miles’ experience. Ray had been out with Miles but couldn’t save him. Even as he trieed, seagulls inched closer.

At least he died doing what he loved. There's another classic cliche for you.



Memo for Last Will & Testament:  The thing I loved most about that thing I loved...is it never killed me! After that, it’s over between me and that thing I loved. You have to draw the line somewhere.



Ray decides to wing it.


“Friends...,” he begins and then dodges abruptly to his left, swatting wildly. He does not connect with the pelican poltergeist and in missing, spins himself all the way around. The other mourners follow his antics unblinking and to their credit, with a minimum of chittering. Embarrassed but determined, he composes himself. “Our friend Miles lived life hard…” he resists the urge to drop to the ground, gripping the bar and closing his eyes until he is sure a great blue heron has found a perch behind him. “…Miles feared nothing and no one...” he soldiers on but something is not right.


The other mourners, mostly family and friends that have known him since he, Miles and Frosty were kids, are looking at him differently somehow. He feels the odd one out, they are different but the same. It is he who is alien. Their eyes, no longer damp, are red but not from crying. They are sharp now, penetrating and focused on him. Awaiting his words they cock their heads from side to side in unison and stare unblinking with those eyes, blood red now and shiny as beetles. Ray’s apprehension, once limited to avian apparitions twitching at the edges, has turned to full centered dread. Uncle Paul regards his diminished hi-ball, no longer raised in encouragement, narrows his gaze and pecks at the last cube of ice in the glass.

* image above by Terrie Boruff Yeatts
borrowed from Artmenow's Blog
http://artmenow.wordpress.com/

Luke & Abby...So far

Dark thunderheads loomed menacingly on the horizon throughout the afternoon and upon Luke's arrival at Abby’s house made good on their threat delivering well spaced dime size drops of rain that sent him dashing for her porch. Abby had prepared herself to endure dinner, perhaps a movie, whatever it took to appease her mother and possibly curtail any future efforts towards resurrecting her love life. It had been 18 months since she and Jack split up and her mother had decided it was high time she, get back out there. When her mom’s friend Trudy mentioned that her nephew was home from Iraq, her fate and this date were sealed. Her new suitor barely stood a chance.

"You must be Luke," she offered in greeting.

"And you must be Abby. Y’all ready?” Luke asked.

“As I’ll ever be, I reckon,” Abby shrugged.

Luke grinned and opened his jacket wide for her to duck under.


“My aunt tells me you’re a singer,” Luke was first to break the silence of the ride. He thought he detected a slight blush in Abby’s fair complexion. His aunt had not exaggerated when promoting her as pretty. Her hair was too red to be called auburn but was not that orangey hair that’s often called red. Her eyes were a deep shade of green and so far had not met his own. He did not know that she wasn’t wearing underwear or that the blush that rouged the tops of her ears was not out of shyness but of anger at her mother’s meddling. “I just sing in the Midbrook Presbyterian choir on Sundays,” she said modestly. But in fact she had a beautiful voice and had often dreamed of singing professionally.

“Where are we going?” she asked hoping to steer the conversation away from herself. They'd turned left onto State Road 16 from the graded road that led away from her house. A right would have taken them into Midbrook. It wasn’t much but it passed for civilization in these parts. Scratch the movie she figured, they were heading towards Burnett where their choices would be between the Dairy Queen and Lulu’s Bar and Grill. It should really be renamed Lulu’s Bar and Microwave since a grease fire had closed the kitchen 6 years before. Abby was resigned to an evening of Slim Jims, Beernuts and remaining unimpressed.

"I was thinkin’ if it’s okay with you, we could ride on over to Weaver and have a look around.” Weaver was the county seat and 17 miles beyond the turnoff for Burnett. Abby only visited Weaver to re-stock household staples at the warehouse grocer or when she needed something from the new Home Depot. Weaver also had a variety of restaurants, a new mall with a multiplex theater, and a night life that wouldn’t have to include shuffleboard or darts. A trip to Weaver with no attached errand held promise. “Sounds like fun,” she said relaxing a bit. Luke’s quick smile loosened her resistance another notch.


Luke reached down and switched on the pickup’s radio...erectile dysfunction effects one in...cringing, he gave the knob a twist...MY MONEY,MY BITCHES,MY...then one more again half-spin...take another little piece of my heart now Bay-bee...finally. Janis worked for him, he gave a sideways glance and detecting no objection thumbed the volume up a touch. Returning his attention to the road, Luke was dumbfounded to see illuminated in his headlights what appeared to be an Indian brave dressed in buckskin and war-paint, clutching the reins of his rearing pinto in one fist and thrusting his be-feathered lance into the night with the other. The truck bore down fast. In the time it took Luke to move his foot from the accelerator to the brake they were nearly upon the wayward warrior. Lightning flashed and Luke braked hard yanking the wheel right, avoiding a collision so narrowly he made eye contact with the now electric brave. Even as he fought for control of the careening vehicle, Luke’s mind etched a surreal image of the warrior on horseback, his lips peeled back in the gaping grimace of his war-cry, “Whaa-Hah uh TAKE IT!”


Luke forced the wheel back hard to the left avoiding a run of fence and sending the already fish-tailing pickup into a broadside slide along the shoulder that shot a wave of black mud into the air for forty feet before coming to rest hard against a speed limit sign.

“What in the hell..?” Abby fairly screamed.

“Are...are you okay?” Luke asked, close to losing it himself.

“Are you trying to kill us?” Abby’s fear was giving way to anger.

Luke, still gripping the steering wheel was trying to make sense of what had just transpired. “Jesus Christ, what happened?” Abby demanded.

Luke looked back to where the Indian should have been and saw nothing. He reached over and popped the glove box open, retrieved a small flask of whiskey, unscrewed the top and took a generous pull before offering the bottle to Abby. “Are you drunk, just what the hell was that all about?” she fumed...but she took the drink. Luke didn’t answer, he opened the door, stepped out of the pickup and saw the black swath the truck had cut leading all the way back to the pavement. He saw no horse. He saw no Indian.

Abby was out of the truck. The liquor might have calmed her nerves a bit but it had not quelled her anger. “Hold up there,” she demanded squaring herself in front of him. Luke knew this time she expected an answer, trouble was he had no idea what the answer might be.

“Didn’t you see?” he probed.

“See fucking WHAT ?”

Abby fed up, wound up, and hurled the flask. Luke fielded the silver projectile inches from his face and with cool he did not truly possess, calmly took another belt to buy time. She hadn’t seen it and Luke was beginning to doubt what he'd seen himself when the warrior’s image flashed again in his mind. Whaaaaa-hah-uh-TAKE IT!

“I don’t know, a dog, coyote maybe,” he lied. If she didn’t see it, and he couldn’t prove it, he wasn’t willing to be judged crazy as well as incompetent. “Damn I’m sorry, you okay?” he asked a second time.

Abby eased a little and took the flask from his hand. “I never even saw it... we missed it?” she asked before taking a sip.

“Yeah, that one got away,” Luke said reinforcing his fabrication.

“Well that’s good I...I guess. Listen, I’m sorry about freaking out on you there, I was a little scared.”

“You and me both,” he agreed.

“Are we stuck?”

“Naw, I’ve been in deeper than this. I’m afraid to look at the other side of my truck though.”

They piled in on the driver’s side, Luke would hold off surveying the passenger side damage until daylight. He started the engine and dropped the pickup in gear, the ground was soft and they showered another blast of the black earth but easily pulled away from the sign and back onto the blacktop. 

“You sure you’re okay?" he asked a third time genuinely concerned.

“I’m OK. To tell you the truth I think I was over-due for a little excitement.” Abby did feel good too; alcohol and adrenalin seemed to be just what the doctor ordered.

“Well then, look out Weaver, we’re on our way and powerful thirsty,” Luke joked.

“Woo-Hoo!” Abby cheered surprising them both. Luke broke his fix on the rearview mirror and eased the clutch out sending the pickup Weaver-ward.

                                        ~*~

Jack Thacker locked the doors of Thacker Hardware at 6:00 pm. The store hours were from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm Monday through Saturday but Jack knew there would be no more customers. Even if there were it would only be Mrs. Perkins for another tube of Superglue, or Jedidiah from Eli’s Fixit needing a washer or a screw. Since the Home Depot had opened in Weaver, Jack couldn’t sell a faucet or a lockset or a power drill. If folks would rather drive thirty minutes each way and hand their money over to those evil bastards in their orange vests then fuck ‘em. He’d turn off the lights and save the electric bill. Mrs. Perkins could wait until tomorrow if she needed any Goddamn Superglue. What on God’s green earth did she do with it all anyway?

It was still happy hour when Jack walked into Nadine’s. “Happy” he whispered, the word foreign in his mouth, the emotion attached to it only a vague recollection. He caught the barmaid Jenny’s eye and she began drawing him a pitcher as he collapsed into his usual booth, lit a cigarette and began stewing over the long list of hardships and injustices he felt kept him from the life to which he was entitled. His list always began with the hardware store his granddaddy had built when there were more horses than cars in Midbrook. Thacker hardware had a hand in the squaring and plumbing of nearly every structure in town. It had thrived since before the First World War and had weathered the great depression and every subsequent recession. His father Zachery kept it going while raising four kids after granddaddy retired and now it would be on his watch that the family business, after surviving every adversity for three generations, failed. Jack Thacker took no notice of the happy hour that swirled around him, the sharp crack of pool balls, the tinkling of ice against glass, the jukebox spewing out "Freebird" for the millionth time, or the carefree laughter of labor unburdened. He just drank and quietly reviewed his list, which always ended with Abigail Deautrive.

A Regular Peculiar Day

A Triple Play By, Paul Phillips, Absolutely*Kate & Harry B. Sanderford

Once upon a tome in a bustling bookshop far, far away, toiled a man who loved fast cars and loathed slow books. Peculiar customers with peculiar customs were a regular occurrence for this regular man but one morning, all records were broken for kookiness. As was the fashion, customers milled lazily about the rows of neatly stacked volumes with little intent of purchase while this regular man in his regular way ignored them, skimming Cliff's Notes on Othello, (being extra careful not to crinkle the corners thereby rendering it un-saleable) just as typical as Tuesday until the most horrendous metal twisting chrome crunching crash interrupted this regular man's regular morning and he looked up to see the huge black Hummer backing slowly away from the rear of his formerly pristine 1967 California Special as if seeking a better vantage point from which to fully appreciate the modern sculpture it had just made of the Mustang's rear bumper. CRASH went the California Special - CRUNCH went the chrome - COLLAPSE went the Cliff's - CLANG went the taut strings of the heightened heart palpitations of the regular man who owned the bustling bookshop where peculiar customers milled lazily and swift skimming was the secret rage ~ no typical today taunted this tainted Tuesday! Arising from his chair, this regular man swept all the peculiar customers aside on his way to the exit, palpitating heart bashing harder and harder against his chest, his stride becoming faster and faster, his face becoming redder and redder, until he made his way outside to the parking bay (parking bays were reserved for one car at a time, right?) to confront the definitely UNregular but extremely peculiar owner of the Heavy Metal Lunchbox On Wheels who had just turned his California Special into the short wheel-base model. He was boiling with rage, ready to read the regular riot act to the rear ending road hog but when the driver’s door popped open he watched the tallest teal heels and the most beautiful legs slide into view for the longest time before being followed by the shortest skirt, well, his heart went BOOM and when he saw her standing there, the way she looked was way beyond compare, and suddenly there was syncopation to his palpitation, and as his heart skipped a beat to the cha-cha samba rumba, he gazed into her beautiful eyes and spoke the words his heart could not, “Might have known it, woman driver!”

Check out:

Paul's bookstore, http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Readers-Heaven/120494344664261 

A*K's Theater, http://at-the-bijou.blogspot.com/

Who Is This They?

Harry B. Sanderford

In 1963 I was in the first grade. Pterodactyls had ceased crossing overhead but clocks still had hands on them. My teacher, Mrs. Miniard was teaching my class how to tell time when the news came that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. It was the first time I'd heard the word. They rolled a television into our classroom to let us watch the coverage. They say that anyone who was around back then remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing. They say this about most significant historical events, murders, and moon landings. They'll say it about the most recent horrors at the World Trade Center too, and they'll be right.
They also say it about your first love. And while I don't recall exactly where I was when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, or Jack's brother Bobby, were gunned down. I do know that in 1963 my brother Roy was in the second grade and in love with a second grader named Becky Heron. It could have been monkey see monkey do, or merely coincidence but I was secretly smitten with another Becky, a first grader named Becky Brown. Work as I would against it, I could not staunch the flow of cartoon hearts which streamed embarrassingly from my juvenile cranium in her presence.
They're right of course, about remembering important events that occur during your lifetime. As for first love, I reserve that particular first (as well as a few important others) for a girl that would not come along for another twelve years. A girl I vividly remember. I don't know about Roy, but I can't really picture those pioneer recipients of our affections. I do recall that Becky Brown had whatever it takes to make a six year old boy who professed to hate girls, think of little else. I also recall of her a marked absence of teeth. Zero front, uppers or lowers. What a woman!

Hard to believe it's already been 10 years since I wrote this.  But I was right about them being right. Right?

Eat, Pray, Love - Alternate Ending

The movie that comes directly to mind when pressed to think of a movie I hate is: Eat, Pray, Love. My recollection of the movie is mainly of an over privileged woman focused largely on her own dissatisfaction who tells her not so bad husband to shove it and sets about figuring out why her not so bad life isn’t way greater. The fact that I found the movie too insufferable to actually stay tuned until the end makes it a perfect candidate for me to write my own ending.

In my ending (which would happen about 14 minutes in) Julia is scarfing a platter of scampi, donkey braying ecstatic if insatiate and licking each glistening finger clean of the buttery garlic salve that soothes her indulgence starved soul when a crack opens in the restaurant floor and she is sucked down into the bowels of hell where she meets a dashing devil played by Steve Buscemi. Buscemi turns in a career performance as the droll demon king who sheds humorous and ironic light on the perils of being so self-absorbed. Unfortunately, the lesson is lost on Julia who is delighted by the new level of sorry she is able to feel for herself with the added legitimacy of eternal damnation.

Jared Handley over at Lit Fire http://litfire.socialgo.com/ is now offering daily prompts. Tuesday's challenge was to write a sequel or a new conclusion for a movie you hate. Check out Lit Fire for some daily inspiration.