Down South

We took a run down from Canada on a wintry Friday night without as much as a change of clothes and crashed into a decent hotel in Minneapolis. We drank beer and played loose pool, attracted two fun girls, one Jamaican, the other dirty blonde, both of whom seemed interested in only one of the four of us. Brian had the chiseled chin, bottomed out with a pirate’s black beard that framed perfect white teeth and the girls rubbed him the right way, the rest of us left to stand and contemplate our cues. We stayed in one big room containing three beds and a couch that I occupied alone like a refugee. Across the room in the half-light, the Jamaican girl rocked over Brian, her large breasts swaying to an imperfect rhythm; all the while she stared at me though I couldn’t make out her expression.
The next morning we were ready to split the hotel, Brian already out and in the car.
I be good to you, cook for you if I come too, the Jamaican girl said to me in the hallway.
The memory of her night movements tickled at my groin, my southern extremities attempting to direct my mood before we headed back north.
I can’t, I said and made my way past her.
Pussy, she whispered and I faltered at the phrase, processed the intent but I didn’t turn around.

Santos

Private Antanna stood in the heat, squinted at his Lieutenant. He held one arm over a sweating brow, an odd salute against the broiling sun. The other arm hugged thin stocks of rolled butcher paper tight to his chest.
“Pardon?”
“Cemetery of the world,” Lieutenant Dorta repeated. He was looking at his men moving about down the long alleyway.
“It’s what the merchant captains call us… this place. The cemetery of the world.”
Antanna glanced down the alley, turned and uneasily surveyed the surface of the wall behind him as if it were a leached and neglected tombstone.
“But we aren’t dead, are we Private,” Dorta continued. “We are alive and well, with work to do.”

He flicked ash from his cigarillo, watched as his soldiers worked their way along the street toward Easter Square, the heart of the city. A musty odor of decay reeked from the dirty gutters. Further down a small group of men lolled near a doorway. Some leaned precariously as if they were drunk. Some sat on the curb, elbows on knees, feverish, their heads hung low. A brown man with a swollen purple neck stared at the white sky. A harsh coughed escaped his throat. Soldiers weaved through them, kicked and prodded with their muskets, covered their mouths as they ordered them to move out of the street. The sick men rose, faded through the doorways, loose like ghosts.

The soldiers continued on, carrying pails of paste and flashing their knives. They tore at the plaster walls, scraping and grunting, ripping ragged bulletin-sized handbills from the blistered surface. One of the men unrolled a sheet of butcher paper as another, wielding a thick brush, slathered paste over the wall surface. Together they slapped the rolled propaganda over top, smoothing it roughly with their palms. The announcement was one of many government notices, a minutia of distraction meant to consume the public’s interest: ship arrivals, slave auctions, merchant goods and fresh produce, the church’s mission, official pronouncements, dates and times for entertainments.

Lieutenant Dorta studied the wall behind Antanna. Near the bottom, the partial words flared through the mulched paper, as if rats had torn and scratched their way to it, eager to reveal the past notification hidden there. Dorta knew the bulletin well. The word, partially showing read – Santos – and the warning words obscured before it – A peste em.

P L A G U E I N S A N T O S

Dorta pushed a boot through the mush of paper and debris, absently toed the dry rat droppings. He dropped his cigarillo, still burning, then followed his men down the alley.
“Alive and well we are,” he muttered. “For now.”

Corn Porn (Uncle Pete Goes A’ Ploughin’with Another Consentin’ Adult)

Somewheres’ in the middle of eastern Nebraska, the sun was beating off a tractor, sittin’ in the middle of a bare naked field. Two figures were relaxin’ side by side on the tractor bed they’d been pullin’. When the sun saw what they was doin’, it slipped behind a sexy cloud and turned a blind eye.

Uncle Pete had been surveyin’ the lay of the land and now he wanted to sample an ample sample. His thick meaty hand reached over and slowly began unbuttoning Sally-Ellen’s checkered shirt.
“These melons look as ripe as Ben Peckeran’s last year’s summer squash crop,” Uncle Pete said, givin’ the heavy gourds a tender squeeze. His thumb toggled a succulent nipple that looked like something from Fred Greely’s early grape yield over in Wheatland.
“Firm as a pencil eraser,” he murmured to no one in particular.
Sally-Ellen didn’t jump like a Jackrabbit or nothin’, just let Uncle Pete grope around a bit, like he was shoppin’ about at the Farmers Market over there in Chesterton on Saturday mornings.
“Uncle Pete,” Sally-Ellen said. ““I like farmin’. It’s just the best. Must be that musty smell of nature.”
“Sure do,” Uncle Pete said, gently takin’ Sally-Ellen’s hand and placing it on his suddenly sprouted corncob that had appeared out of nowhere, like tall corn in the fertile summer heat, right after a rainy season.
“Do you enjoy cream corn?” Uncle Pete said to Sally-Ellen, unbucklin’ her handmade corn belt and slidin’ two fingers, stocky and bulbous like knuckled zucchini, down towards her moist feathered furrow, as deep and dark as Roscoe Snapp’s drip-irrigation well over on the south side of the community.
Sally-Ellen didn’t answer, only blinked about in the warm blue yonder, her hand moving up and down the corncob like a one-handed milkin’ of Clara Bell’s dairy cow.
“You enjoy farmin’ too, don’t ya Uncle Pete,” Sally-Ellen said finally, her look as far away as Hugo Anderson’s wheat silo three miles off County Road 6.
“Yup, I sure do,” Uncle Pete said, feelin’ a little lightheaded. “I’m a seed farmer darlin’. Always have been, always will be. Now, I think that’s about enough pullin’ for today.”

Vole Lux

Man, I’m stoked. The anticipation is driving me nuts. There’s a buzz pinging around the auditorium - the rumor of Vole Lux showing up. Ha, ya’ right, Vole Lux, like she has time to revisit her old high school for a lame reunion. Shit, her Scanda/Japana tour starts in two days. Man, if I had the bucks I’d be in both places pronto!

We used to call her ‘Vole the Mole’ because she was like this timid rodent, all mousy looking with small yellow teeth. We didn’t even know what vole meant. I guess we did some mean things in high school back then but that was all… you know… well everybody was a dick. I autographed her yearbook on a dare from my buds, like they thought I didn’t have the balls. I remember she flinched when I approached, like I was going to punch her or something. I acted all nice, put on my best serious face. Her yearbook was empty from what I saw and I scribbled something like: Come out of that hole, Vole the Mole and face your ugly future!
And brother, I guess she did. Look at her now.

Man, her music kicks ass! ‘Mole’s Sunlight’ is an awesome album - should be Record of the Year in my book. And ‘Bonfire Grizzly’ just rips it up! And ‘I Shit in Your Barbeque’, oh God, don’t get me started; it’s a classic. You know, I’d like to think I had something to do with her success. Maybe she took my scribble to heart; I mean her music reeks balls of the ugly in this old world! Man, I hope she shows. Maybe she can autograph something for me like I did for her. She can write anything she wants, anywhere on my body. That’d be awesome. I mean it. Anywhere she wants. Anywhere man.

I Suspect...

Colonel Mustard

He is quite the confident one, the tall gentleman in uniform, preening like a rare exotic bird in front of the vestibule mirror. A white linen glove brushes lint from the left breast pocket, glides lightly over gold and silver medals. They sparkle flat dead weight on his chest. He’s appears to be reminiscing in an old memory - of the Academy perhaps - playing to the young cadets hovering about, listening to a sharp wit.
Sharp… yes.
I see how he pulls and twirls the right side of his thin mustache, shapes it into a fine black stiletto point, a dagger’s point… perhaps like the one concealed in the right breast pocket, right next to a cold-blooded heart. This isn’t a game, Colonel Mustard. You act as if nothing has happened to your dear friend Mr. Boddy in the other room who lies helpless to the neat and precise insert that has severed the top of his spine.


Mrs. Peacock

Mrs. Peacock, the woman in the living room, reminds me of the Singer Sargent painting, Madame X, a thin woman with alabaster skin set in a sleek black dress. The dress moves in a flowing rhythm on her wiry dancer’s body. She doesn’t appear particularly weak by any means.
Two young officers bob about and two-step around her, cough up irrelevant questions. There’s a seductive crinkle around her eyes when she smiles; it’s both charming and irresistible. Her eyes focus on the mouths of the young detectives when she speaks, leaving them flustered and tongue-tied.
Tied… yes, that’s the issue here, isn’t it?
Mr. Boddy was found with a thin rope encircling his mottled blue neck. Mrs. Peacock is from old money - New Hampshire, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve come to learn her investment portfolio is tied up with the victim’s investments and all of Mr. Boddy’s investments have mysteriously disappeared.


Professor Plum

The dimly lit library reveals Professor Plum. His name underscores the short round silhouette that shadows against a large stained glass window. I understand he and Mr. Boddy attended high school together, stayed in touch over the years. The guise of melancholy cloaks the professor; his distant gaze betrays something perhaps deeper than disbelief over the death of a friend. I observe his movements about the room, the gentle trace of fingertips over the books lining the shelves, his hand caressing a decorative artifact, an exotic pipe of some sort. As I pass, he draws his hand quickly away. A blow to the head most certainly influenced the demise of Mr. Boddy though a specific weapon has yet to be determined. Be careful Professor. You might just give yourself away.


Mr. Green

Hmm… the chauffeur did it; it was Mr. Green. The chauffeur is always the guilty one in the movies. Easy if it were true but it’s not that simple.
I’ve noticed he has a slight twitch. It’s a triple blink of his eyes and accentuates when asked if the garage can be examined. The blow to Mr. Boddy’s head was made with a blunt instrument - a wrench perhaps… or a pipe. Mr. Green said the garage was broken into last week; equipment is missing, several expensive tools taken. Strangely, no police report was taken. Mr. Green didn’t think it was worth causing a stir. Wouldn’t want Mr. Boddy finding out now would we… or did he find out? I know money is an issue for Mr. Green with back alimony payments and a knack for slow-footed ponies. It’s best to keep an eye on Mr. Green.


Miss Scarlet

Miss Scarlet, Mr. Boddy’s personal assistant, is at her writing desk drawing on a cigarette. She appears to be cool and calm, hiding her emotions behind a veil of smoke but she is rather transparent and I can see why; all her assets sit upfront, on full display. I’m sure Mr. Boddy took full advantage, fooled her with false intentions, and then shot down any hope for a future by cruelly and publicly taking up with Mrs. Peacock.
There’s a small hole below Mr. Boddy’s left armpit, a bullet hole from a small caliber pistol, a direct hit to the heart to match a broken one I’d say.


Mrs. White

The police mill about and try to keep everyone separated so as not to contaminate the crime scene. There are too many suspects, too many wounds; they haven’t a clue. I’ve been eavesdropping on the various conversations. A policeman told the detective in charge something about the guests: not one has asked how Mr. Boddy died.
Only I know that.
Jerome Boddy was a vicious and uncaring man. On his way to his ill-earned success, he destroyed many people – hurt many of those here at the dinner party with that devouring nature and sad to say, I believe he enjoyed it.
It appears some of those he hurt stumbled upon him in the billiard room, and each - in their own way - took the opportunity to privately express their contempt. I mean, what was the harm - Jerome Boddy was already dead.

I am the only one here who is not a suspect. My name is Harriet White. I was Mr. Boddy’s housekeeper several years back. I was something he couldn’t have, couldn’t own, and with that, he decided to hurt me too, in the worst way. I suppose it was too much for his cold heart to take, to see me again standing there in the billiard room, in the very room where he murdered me.

Adaptation

It was a show of solidarity I suppose, back when we didn’t even know what the word meant.

In the summer of ’62, my sister Hanna fell and cut her knee on a metal tent peg. All morning long, my sisters and I had chased around the oversized tent our Uncle Remee had raised behind our house, a canvas monstrosity that served as his current place of business for secretive dealings. The ‘sugar shack’ he liked to call it. Hanna had tripped the rope and sliced her right knee at that soft spot just below the cap. Against the backdrop of Hanna’s hollering and wailing to holy hell, Becca and I, slow as molasses, carted her up to the house using a wide piece of cardboard we’d found next to the shack; I remember Becca telling her to hush down, to not make it worse by drawing unwanted attention. The only attention I was sure about was the switch whipping our mother was going to hand out for being so careless, playing where we shouldn’t have around Uncle Remee’s private endeavors.

But the whipping never came, not even a yelling spell. All mother gave us was a disengaged stare. It was a defeated expression, a look that settled on her face with a simple ease and even more troubling, remained there.

Sam McCall, a part-time nurse at the sawmill, came and sewed Hannah’s knee up, bent and bandaged it in a thick white cotton triangle. Hanna was told to stay in bed for two weeks, her leg padded and angled in the shape of the number four. Becca and I stayed with her, fetching cold lemonade and cucumber sandwiches while Hanna cried and moaned in our oversized bed, complained over and over how much the stitching itched throughout the heat of day and night and the time in between. There was only one spindle chair in our room and we sat and took turns reading stories, at times standing, propping our backs up against a wall when our butts got sore from sitting, shifting from one bent leg to the other, strangely mimicking Hanna’s bedridden appearance. At night, we’d sleep in our usual spots on the edge of the bed - Becca on the left, me on the right with Hanna in the middle as before the accident. In low candlelight, we’d whisper up tall tales and take turns stroking her hair until she fell off to sleep. Late one night, I awoke to see mother leaning in on the door jam, cigarette dangling lazily from her thin fingers, smoke drifting out the door and escaping down the dark hall. She stayed quiet, only stared at us as if revisiting lost time in her own dreamscape and sadness. ”Take care of your sisters,” was the last thing I heard her murmur before I fell back to sleep.

Our mother vanished the day Sam McCall came back to recheck Hanna’s stitching. No note, no nothing except Uncle Remee’s reassuring rant that she needed some time to get things together and how we’d have to fend for ourselves for a while which we’d done half our lives anyway. Uncle Remee kind of disappeared too, spending most of his time in his sugar shack, making occasional short runs into town or longer ones down to the valley.

By the fall, Hanna’s knee had healed up nicely. Becca and I made sure she exercised the knee, our confederation of three squatting and preening like pretty ballerinas flexing our knees in tandem and giggling at our awkwardness until we hurt. In quieter moments, we’d wonder to what place our mother had flown off to and when if ever, we might follow.

Killing Mountain

It was still dark when Big Sol walked off the mountain, the heavy Remington rifle gripped firmly in his hands. He snaked through tall pine and tight poplars until he found the dirt road that bent toward the town and an empty mile later, passed through the gray outskirts of broken shacks, the street vacant save for a few horses tied to railings. Further down, he found the doc’s weathered shingle. The sun was aflame on the horizon and a few birds pierced the sky with their early cries when a gunshot from inside broke the morning wide open. Big Sol emerged, the Remington smoking on his hip, a satchel of elixirs, medicine bottles and bandages in hand. From across the street, the fat Marshall trotted halfway toward him, pulling at his face and suspenders with one hand and fumbling a pistol with the other and as he opened his mouth in recognition, half his head disappeared in a red mist from the erupting rifle.

Big Sol crossed to the saloon, came out a few minutes later with bottles of whisky and bourbon clinking in his satchel. As he stepped into the street, a young deputy in a long coat emerged from a building to his right, stumbled to a railing, pistol drawn, fired once… then again. The Remington’s return fire unhinged the deputy’s leg at the knee, setting it free to dangle and the man tilted and bowed as if in a difficult dance, leaned headfirst over the railing and stayed still.

Big Sol ran the cold gray light to the spot along the road a mile up, turned into the trees and began the climb. An hour later, he sat in the silent cabin, the useless elixirs and bandages strewn across the wooden table. He uncapped another bottle of whiskey from the satchel and guzzled until his throat hurt; on a corner cot, Tall Tom lay as stiff and cold as those left in town.

A lone candle dwindled down as night crept about the cabin. Big Sol succumbed quickly to the alcohol’s bite, slumped in his chair and dozed. What had happened earlier that morning in town was now a blur. Yes, he’d taken down the doctor and the lawmen. The old doc had refused to give him anything.
“Need to ‘git him down here,” he’d wheezed.
“We take care of our own… I’ll take only what I need,” Sol had replied and turned for the doctor’s medicine cabinet. The sudden click of a cocked revolver caught his ear and Big Sol had dipped, turned and fired. A reaction… self-defense… desperation? He didn’t know for sure.

His mind reeled as the liquor settled deeper and he thought briefly about the lawmen. What had they expected? The odds had been on their side. They’d bet and bought in and paid heavily for it.

Cascading images from the previous day now washed headlong to the surface. Tall Tom hadn’t stood a chance - no by god - hadn’t deserved the death he was handed. The bear had surprised them, crashed out of a thick clot of heavy bramble as they approached their cabin. Boot, their old wolf dog had raced up from the river, leapt for the bear’s throat, tore at its flank then attacked its massive bulk from all sides. But the bear had returned the damage two-fold, thrown Boot away ripped and bleeding in the fuming dirt. Tall Tom had scrambled, stumbled over his own long feet as he tried to make for the cabin but the bear, quick as lightning, took him down. Weaponless, Sol stood frozen and for a moment everything stopped and the bear had looked up, stared into his eyes.
“Don’t…” Sol thought.
But the bear - as if reading his mind – did, closed his jaws evenly around Tall Tom’s head. Big Sol ran for the cabin, for his rifle by the door. Behind him, the sound of thrashing filled his ears. He sprung from the porch, rifle cocked and ready but the bear was gone. Tall Tom lay sprawled in a twist of torn rags, a sea of blood forming in the dirt around his head.

Take care of our own. Big Sol looked at Tall Tom, his younger brother cold and still in the corner, at Boot beneath a blanket on the floor next to him. It had been the three of them for a while now and here he was, suddenly alone. He remembered their ma saying the Lord wouldn’t ever give more than one could handle, that there was a purpose and reason for everything and when the Lord took her violently and unexpectedly, he had tried hard - real hard - to understand it. He had shouted to the emptiness of the mountain, to the silence of the sky, cursed her God for an answer. Why had he allowed such terrible loss to happen? What more could he handle?

The Lord had stayed silent.

They’d moved from the town, away from the cemetery that held both parents, settled in the old cabin their grandfather had built further up the mountain toward the snow tops. There they started a simple life and it was the way it was, the solitude of the wilderness soul cleansing, the pain receding as they began to heal and rebuild. Then one day the Lord unexpectedly came calling, sent Big Sol an answer.

He sent the bear.

He sat in the dark and drained another bottle of whisky, his brain yielding fully to the dull numbness. He waited for God’s next move. The law would eventually come for him, God-fearing folk they were. He could hear the bear just outside, closing in, its growl filling the emptiness of the cabin and his heart with what sounded like garbled words. Is that you Lord? The next move would be the final one. Rifle on his lap, Big Sol tried to make out the words, listened intently for the answer. What else was a sixteen year old to do?

The Incident

“Got two little girls missing,” Sheriff Meeks says, nodding back to the Hables standing separate on the porch. “Look for anything… everything… any clue.”

Behind the farmhouse, thin trees along the fogging distance wait on us, black scratch marks against a slate colored sky. It’s as quiet as the dead. Our formed line wobbles, each of us eight to ten feet apart like we were told, eyes on the ground over Len Hable’s furrowed field. In summer, this farmland is tall and friendly, walls of wheat that wave right back at you - so full of life - but not this autumn day.

Black crows hop about the upturned soil, sift through collateral debris in search of their own evidence of life, and warily bounce away as we approach. Kathleen Hable stumbles up behind our line, Sheriff Meeks’s hand at her elbow like she might fall. Her worn linen coat doesn’t seem enough for this brisk day but she wouldn’t wait. The wind sends wisps of thin blonde hair searching around her face, catching in the crooked ravine of her open mouth. Len Hable is down at the stationhouse, answering questions along with several men who work his farm.
“Just routine,” Sheriff Meeks tells Kathleen with a stare, the same stare he gave all of us who volunteered to search.

Stevie Fenwick who works at Burwell’s Hardware sidles along next to me, adjusts the collar of his seam-sealed fleece jacket and tucks his neck down inside like a turtle, causing his glasses to fog. “Them girls just didn’t up and disappear. Think someone took ‘em.” It doesn’t come across as a question. The Jeremy brothers flank opposite. They’ve come over from their farm three miles up wearing down hunting vests, one blue plaid, one plain red, to tell them apart I suppose but I’m not that familiar with their names anyway, only know one’s been in trouble with the law off and on and I think it’s odd he’s out here in the shadow of the sheriff.

A lot of folks turned out to help. Farming neighbors and townies alike, members of the church, several high school kids, a few from the grain exchange. There are some I don’t recognize. My gaze lingers for a second. It’s bad business this. Brings out the best and worst in everyone.

***************************************

From the trees, the missing girls watch the bobbing line of advancing adults. Missy Hable wears a petulant, six-year-old frown. It’s getting dark and the incident from earlier that morning has almost been forgotten.
“I wonder if we’re in trouble?”
“You are,” her younger sister says, eyes dead tired shooting down on the approaching specter of their mother. She wanders away, out of the woods.

Sea Monsters

The boy woke, eyes half-glued shut, cracked lips sealed in brine, his throat a painful parchment rattle. Above, the high rise pitch of gulls. The boy’s sun-baked face pillowed against a naked forearm and his eyes rested on the slow undulation of the distant dark line. Through the sleepy blur, blue met deeper blue along a horizon’s straight edge. The easy sway of the empty dinghy closed his mind down again, rocked him, cupped and cradled like a newborn. He fell back to sleep.

He dreamt he was standing on the dock. His father was already on board the Sea Giant, doodling over a map while Carol waited on a shaded bench below, dabbing at the face in a compact mirror. “For Christ’s sake Dallas,” she said, “is the kid coming or not?” “Come on Denny,” his father said. “Get your damn ass on board. Don’t keep your step-mother waiting.”

He didn’t want to go. In another dream - a real-life one - his mom had disappeared while on the water with his father. ”A devastating accident,“ Dallas had convinced the police. Her body was never found. And soon after his father was seeing Carol. In dreams, he heard his mother’s fading voice calling out his name, warning that this dream would not end well.

The open sea frightened him and what lurked along its vast bottom, in deep trenches scared him more. His sixth grade History book was full of imaginative stories and drawings, depictions of creatures grappling long cable-thick tentacles over wooden boats as terrified sailors looked to the skies… ocean-wide whirlpools boiling beneath calm seas… flat-headed serpents coiling to the surface, maws open wide. He had no trouble imagining any of it. And now in the dream, they were on the water, the Sea Giant humming straight as an arrow toward a targeted horizon. His father was drunk and arguing with Carol, a cold smirk crossing his face. And when he lowered his voice and looked Denny’s way, it was the look of an unfathomable creature and it scared him more than anything he could ever have imagined.

Carol was crying and he almost felt sorry for her until he saw it in her eyes, knew she was on board with what his father had planned. They were fish eyes, round and glossy-wet, compassionless. She looked at him, mouthed, ‘I’m not your mother… never will be… I’m not the one abandoning you,’ her words trailing as she watched Dallas approaching, one arm lingering behind his back. The sea was quiet. The sun saw with its great glowering eye. Then came the sudden boom from below water.

When Denny opened his eyes again, the light was gone. He looked up to the dark beauty of a berry blue ceiling; there seemed to be more stars than sky. It was quiet but for the lap of black water, the cool wind whispering over the contoured surface of the dinghy. He rolled onto his side, leaned up on one elbow, his thoughts wrapped in cotton, his face sore from sunburn and dehydration. Rubbing a swollen eye, he tried to focus on the shape draped over the bow - a flotation device or some sort of gear he thought. Blinking, he focused again and caught his breath; it was the shape of a man’s face and a whimper of ‘Da’ escaped him; when he saw its white teeth flash in the blue moonlight, he lost all consciousness.

In the dream, Denny sat in the dinghy, the cold aluminum seat biting into his bare legs. His father stood on the deck of the Sea Giant. He was reeling and yelling at Carol, screaming for her to get into the dinghy, screaming at Denny to get back on board. Carol sat terrified, unmovable. The dingy swayed as the boat rumbled, pushed away. A deep breaking sound from below the water shook the vessel, rolled it quickly, Dallas’s eyes widening, big as Texas and he grabbed for Carol as the Sea Giant went under, suctioned down, quicker than lightning to ground.

It was still dark when Denny woke. His eyes were slits, puffy, and it was difficult to see in the shadowy moonlight. He was lying on his back on the bottom of the dinghy. His body ached, his muscles wrapped in deep heat and he tried to sit up, found he was unable to move. The sensation of a small hand - a woman’s hand he thought - cradled the back of his head, tilting it forward and another hand was bringing a vial of liquid to his mouth. “Mom?” he croaked and a soft garbled voice sang in his ear, ‘drink this.’

As he tilted his head he made out the shape of someone saddled on the edge of the bow. It was a man, the face from earlier, body in silhouette, a black arm extended pointing a long forked staff straight out to sea, toward the brightest star in the southern constellation. There was splashing about in the water, what sounded like fish jumping, tails smacking and he sensed the dinghy moving quickly through the water. There was music - or what sounded of music - though none that he had ever heard before and the more he listened, the more it sounded like a tubular call coming not from a shore but from far below. And he wanted to go down. Eyes heavy, he wanted to go deep.

The fishing boat found him at daylight. The boy was cocooned, wrapped in dry kelp up to his neck, a nest of seaweed sprouting and coiled Medusa-like behind his head. His face was covered with small iridescent scales that flaked and dropped from his skin leaving it smooth and brown. The puffiness was gone from his eyes; they were now clear and smiling. Dolphins cut through the surface around the dinghy, watched, talked. The fishermen marveled at the sight, at the breathing boy, at the turbulent water receding far below.

This Cab Goes Out To The Styx

The big guy drops into my cab midway up Acheron. I’m thinking he’s drunk ‘cause he don’t look so good, his body ripped like a North-End bus seat, all nooks and crannies in oiled leather, babbling on and on with a full mouth of grumble, explaining how he just whacked some dude, how it’s part of the job, you know - mob-work – all shameful-bravado - but he’s holding his guts like something’s going to spill out - looks wet and shiny back there in the dark.

He says his name is Gregor but his friends call him by his nickname, ‘The Fuse’ and I want to say, “why, you got a short one” but he looks the type that might take it the wrong way, though it don’t matter to me ‘cause I’m just driving and doing my part here.

And he goes on and on - as do the dark streets - telling the tales that I know so well, the ones I listen to every day as they pay and play with twists and turns, shortcuts and back roads, the sorrow and the bluster endlessly swirling around like garbage in the street.

“Hey, Buddy,” he says finally, “you were supposed to make a right back there”, and I can see his eyes flash as he reads my ID card on the dash and then he’s mouthing, “ya you, Boatman… you missed my stop” but I know better, don’t say nothing.

All I hope is, he’s got the fare when we get to the river.

Inside Outside In

We stay beneath the wood behind the man and woman’s house, Bella by my side, his black fur sleek and shiny. We wait patiently while the man and woman leave food and milk, slip away a distance to watch, their eyes warm like the sun.

The sky is metal gray when two are born beneath the wood; there is not enough room when the rain falls hard and cold, water runs in narrow muddy rivers around us, the two embedded in my thick fur, Bella embedded in a curl, his fur thin and matted, falling away.

The man’s eyes are red. He looks down when he tells the woman he has taken Bella across the river to a place where he will have a chance.

Now a stranger with cold eyes has come and taken the two, telling the man with red eyes a similar lie.

Everyday, I look for Bella and the two, searching the familiar places, searching until the sun has gone and when the sun has gone again, the man takes me.

They watch from another room in the warm house. I sleep on a dry blanket and dream of Bella and the two who are here with me now, not by my side but finally inside.

Afterglow

My stomach still leaps thinking about it, when I first saw the shaky handheld footage by Edward Weller, taken out behind Weller’s Amazing Attractions near Glenns Ferry, a one-pump tourist trap featuring two-headed rattlesnakes and mummified aliens… how the grainy images looked like a phony Hollywood sci-fi flick - a light source shimmering in the dust next to dilapidated tin sheds… a ‘spike of light’ is what Dad called it – a laser-like beam spiraling needle-thin into blue Idaho sky.

On the third day after the appearance, Dad showed up at school in his cruiser; I crazily thought he was there to make a drug bust or something but instead he took me away - my 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Watt was confused and not too happy as we were in the middle of a science test - and he didn’t say anything though he looked scared as we ran down the steps to our packed station wagon where Mom and Holly were already waiting.

We stayed in a roadside Motel 6 the first night and they wouldn’t let us watch anymore TV, told us to go to sleep as they turned the set to a curtained window, turned the volume to a whisper and huddled around it, watched in silence, though I heard Mom say, ‘what are we going to do?’ and since then we’ve camped off the road and they don’t say much, just listen to NPR on the radio while Holly toys with her stupid doll, whines ‘where we going mamma!’ every goddamn minute, and I’ll catch Mom’s worried smile cross her face – the one she’s so good at lately – but all she says is, ‘we’ll be there soon, baby… soon.’

The drone of radio seeps into the car’s back seat… I hear only bits and pieces of information – that there’s a military blockade and a no-fly area of ten miles around it, that it’s a flaming tree that has the religious types crying out, that the ‘spike of light’ is wider now and spinning into a fiery tornado, that it strings out into space with no visible end, that the Virgin Mary has appeared inside of it, that the Vatican is silent, that violence has stopped in the entire Middle East as they watch, that soldiers near it hear music, that others hear garbled voices, that there have been shootings, that God is returning, that it’s the devils work…

Hundreds of cars pass in the opposite direction, trucks and vans stacked with belongings on rooftops like cartoon caravans, people on foot with backpacks and suitcases, some carrying signs that say, ‘get me to the rapture’ and ‘the end is not near’, all going west toward the burning copper sunset and Mom whispers, ”they’re wrong” and I see Dad’s gaze in the rearview mirror, fixed like a man who has been told something secret and profound but he stays quiet.

It’s been a couple of hours since we made the southern curve around Tallahassee, heading for the Keys where Uncle Marcus is waiting with everything; I can smell the sickly tar-paper air, baked by the oven-hot heat of a tangerine sky and the wind leaking through the car burns like sandpaper on my skin, and while Mom and Holly doze, I ask Dad if we’re going to be okay but he only repeats what he said an hour ago, his voice cracked and softer this time, that we need to get to the water fast – get on the water soon… get on the water soon.

October 13 Preview - Ears Become Eyes

A trickle of seepage invades my blue jeans and I shake a little from the chill that grips and cramps my lower spine, pulls me tight to the dank stench of cold concrete, the stink of mental institution and I wonder if that’s where this sewer leads. Flat on our bellies and sweating like hot-dogs in the narrowing tunnel, my nose brushes Mitchell’s rubber heels and my flashlight falters over his thin shoulder where the beam stops against dark solid air; quietly listening, I’m beginning to have second thoughts. It’s the sound of late after midnight when the house walks and shifts and settles old cracking beams and bones, when echoing rain rumbles high on the roof and everyone you love is wrapped in warm dreams, everyone but you, alone, twisted and fitful in the dark, clutching the damp crooked sheets. And it’s there in the dead of night when you are surprisingly aware, when every sense is heightened and every sound now dons some perverted face with a slanted shape and a writhing purpose, when imagination truly gives birth and your ears become eyes and for the first time you begin to see all the possibilities. Mitchell continues to babble on, something about how this was my idea in the first place and that I should now go first and I want him to shut up and listen, listen because I hear something and it sounds like it’s oozing - - as if you can hear something oozing - - a sticky clop, a detached sound and I notice my jeans are now soaked through. Mitchell’s still talking but all I hear is something coming and I’m thinking I might just back away, inch down quietly and leave Mitchell to do what he does best and that’s to talk this out on his own because he doesn’t have much of an imagination, not like me anyway and he doesn’t see it, not the way I see it.



October’s 13/#1 - Somewhere Between Good and Evil

There are a slew of stories told by long haulers about a stretch of highway between the coasts where they say God and the Devil crossed paths while thumbing through America; it’s a stretch of bad karma, mysterious disappearances, unexplained occurrences where travelers inexplicably up and vanish into thin air leaving no answers or calls… just gone; and what happened at that crossroad, how it went down between God and the Devil… shit, one can only guess but one story went like this.

There may have been a struggle… a reckoning… an old-fashioned duel between madmen. And the exact spot of this encounter, Somewhere USA - - somewhere between fading cornfields and dirt cities, perhaps on a curve of blacktop a few miles outside of your own quaint town, a faulty bend in the road slightly past midnight. Perhaps they played a fun game of chance, rolled the dice and paved the road with the memory - - even number: let you go… odd number: eat you up.
I tend to turn up the radio when traveling, listen to upbeat music and think pleasant thoughts. Hell, I even pray a little as I travel toward the darkening horizon and bleeding sunset.



October’s 13/#2 - Dead Serious

That damn virus killed almost all of America, at least everyone I ever knew and loved, took our dreams and most of our wants. It left some alive… like those healthy slabs of red meat I see lurking behind the glass at the old butcher shop.
I’ve seen what their guns can do; they’re heavily loaded but it doesn’t really matter because there are more of us than the bullets they are running out of. Oh Lord I hunger for the days when we could embrace our old dreams, grab on tight to all this country had to offer. We are still those Americans - - even in death - - relentless and picky to the end, hungry for what we truly want and right now that would be living flesh. And seriously brother, we want you… fresh.



October’s 13/#3 - Once In A Blue Moon

On the slow days in simmering heat, Moe is content to lie in a loose heap and ponder the butterflies and bees that zigzag about, one-eye the few chickens that peck about the untended yard. The warm familiarity of the dog-eared porch is a steady comfort as he waits for the woman to return. There’s not much desire to stir things up, not much need to stretch out bony bones; those days are mostly behind him… but once in a while… once in a blue moon… something will stir…like the other night when that fox came rifling through… he’d jumped to the call, off the porch for the chase and fight, all that play stuff except, it hadn’t been a fox. Something bigger and upright on two feet had swiped at him, blurred on through and left a rake of nail that seared his hindquarter.

The woman hasn’t been around, more than likely down the road closing down the bar like she’s apt to do on a sweltering night like this. Moe’s hip is now a puffy black furrow, the scratch itching hot and personal and an even sweeter itch simmers just below the surface - - the insatiable need for flesh and blood to wet his mouth; he is pleasantly aware how his teeth ache and protrude and how - in drifting sleep - he is comforted with panting dreams that buzz through his head like annoying wasps, only the wasps now roar with the sound of a terrible ripping and he finds himself loping with purpose, faster than the wind, down the blue moonlit road toward light and laughter on the edge of town.



October’s 13/#4 - Frankly-Doctor-You-Make-Me-Crazy

i-not-think-good-for-nice-words. body-sore-from-needle-holes-and-slice-parts. doctor-say-I-truly-alive. me-grateful-for-all-parts-he-give. only-hate-blue-jolt-he-repeat-send-through-my-being-while-he-laugh-crazy-to-sky. jolt-work-first-time-and-now-annoy-with-fry-brain-and-once-he-finish-with-new-hand-sew-i-help-remove-laugh-from-crazy-him-face.



October’s 13/#5 - Six Feet Under

The Crawley kids are talking to a therapist. I’d be too if I’d found what they did. Joey White and Donald Forrester buried a blood-smeared mannequin’s hand in the kiddies’ sandbox by the park, a cool Halloween prank for sure but the kids ran home crying, got their folks and police involved.

There’s something else going on out there; camera crews are clogging the neighborhood streets and TV reporters are running haywire like it’s an OJ crime scene as the police barricade off the playground, blocking access to the park. My friend Henry’s dad is a cop and he overheard him talking with the other police officers, though I’m not sure Henry heard it right. There’s more to it, something about what those guys didn’t bury… or perhaps did… something about feet… real feet… lots of them… at least three bodies worth.



October’s 13/#6 - What Lies Beneath

October 31, 1947:
We, who live in the small hamlets along the northern territory shoreline may have seen something fall from the sky, crash into the deep bowl that was our lake; if we did see, nothing was said, only whispered.

October 31, 1960:
New housing developments overshadowed our lodgings when investors cashed in on the wilderness and wine colored lake; over the years we listened to their complaint - lack of wildlife to hunt, the poor fishing catch - and we told them it was just the way of nature.

October 31, 1973:
The mysterious disappearance of four boaters and their boats brought about an investigation by federal authorities but the cases remained unsolved as the lake - - a deep crater 2000 feet deep - - left no clues; we who knew left offerings near the water’s edge; the disappearances stopped.

October 31, 1986:
The developments went the way of ghost towns as strange sightings were reported on the lake and in the surrounding woods; several locals went missing and were dismissed as ‘runaways’ but we knew what we’d done; there were no investigations by the local authority.

October 31, 1999:
Only a few families remained on the lake and those who stayed and understood continued to leave what was necessary beside the water’s edge.

October 31, 2012:
Our skates cut the thin veil over the ice pond and we follow the blowing tornados of snow across the glass surface; something wide knifes beneath the ice and I sense the deep water below about to boil but I am not afraid.



October’s 13/#7 – Skittles

He’ll do his part this night, string up the clattering bones and frayed cobwebs, wire the crinkled spiders and worn leathered bats, and light the surgically carved pumpkin. Oh yes, he’ll put the usual work into it, hell, he believes a skull when properly painted can look quite real, almost like it could smile again. Inside the house, he’ll turn out the lights and wait in the quiet knowing that before long the heavy shout of ‘trick or treat’ will land upon his doorstep and despite the darkened windows, the doorbell will ring over and over echoing no answer and the little devils will disappear. Much later, the last of them will trundle by, usually the greedy ones eager to cash in on the last of the sweet things. Shaking the atrophy that tortures his limbs, he will skittle up from the basement, plucking clots of dirt from his swollen features. And when they see him dressed like them in full nightmare attire, they will scream - knowing it’s too late - and try to run and he’ll raise a ruined face to the whitening sky - bulging feelers encircling - and oh yes, the treat will be on him.



October’s 13/#8 - Let It Out

Okay… open your mouth, take a deep breath and let it out. Oh… no, no, no… you call that a scream? Please, try it again and this time really let it go, the louder the better. Don’t worry. No one can hear you. It’s only you… and me… and this most interesting room.



October’s 13/#9 - There’s This Place

Here in the rural outskirt, there’s a shadowed road that weaves like a long black snake through swamp and thicket marked with buckled shanties that sprout like boxwood along its roadside, and if by some mistake you’ve taken this road, found your way down round Wellman’s Bog, you will come upon a nameless trailer park - a ramshackle of disintegrating trailer homes contorted every which way like some abandoned train wreck. There are no streetlights or paved driveways here, no white picket fences or beautiful gardens, no fancy cars or big-wheeled trucks… just a pool of society that has slipped from the mainstream and exist near the bottom; some may have a thing or two to hide but most are simple folk who choose to live quietly, wish only to be left alone.

Down in nearby Mallorytown, there is rumor this place is the Meth-man’s hangout, a zippie-hippie commune, a gypsy camp… a witch’s coven. It is easy to label what is not understood, to mistake what is seen, challenge what is believed… and should one poke around here late after midnight, well, there are things to been seen that may surprise - - turned-over cans and knotted bags of garbage may lean like deformed goblins and jitter in the dark when the wind grabs and tickles them… a smoke stained curtain may move and contort, then take on the appearance of a skillfully dissected face… blackened metal drums, the ‘trash burning’ type might belch a strangely pleasant “cooked” smell.

And should a hand touch your shoulder while you’re poking about, be glad that it’s only me because I’m mostly harmless, somewhat of a discarded scarecrow you might say that’s lost a bit of its stuff. I cannot tell you how long I’ve lived here but if you come in, stay for a spell, I will gladly show you why.



October’s 13/#10 – Nightmare Girl

She calls well after midnight, tells me she’s going to be late. “Please don’t be mad,” she pouts. “It’s been so busy tonight.” Truthfully, I’m not mad, just spoiled and lazy after all these years. My girl will do anything for me; she’s a nurse down at the county hospital. She knows what I am and bless her heart… actually believes she’s saving lives by delivering what I crave.



October’s 13/#11 - Little Horrors

For Fletcher Chapman, the little horrors of Halloween night are pure joy. He eagerly answers each knock, drops handfuls of candied treats into the outstretched bags, and savors the shrieks of ‘Trick or Trick’ and ‘Thank You!’ that echo around him in the October night. He is almost brought to tears as he watches them rustle away across his lawn like tumbling leaves.

Tomorrow is only a few hours away. Fletcher knows that in the morning, the real horror will begin. In the glare of new light, he will need to endure the torture of strangling traffic on his way to work, a monster of a boss lurking over his shoulder, his mummified secretary Betty’s clawing voice, the office trolls that scurry from the elevator and flow darkly down the halls, Connie’s poisonous cooking waiting on the dinner table, the silent zombies pretending to be his children and most of all, the specter of another year trapped in life’s suffocating nightmare.



October’s 13/#12 - In Our Town

No one goes out this night. Here, the earth binds and bends, gives up its contents in oily vomit, wet worm stench and all. Building exteriors blister and boil, statues and facades exhibit carvings of sutured faces bathed in blue moonlight, avenues of blasted trees stretch like black boned fingers, their silhouettes clutching and grabbing at the maw of night. Unspeakable monstrosities loll in every corner, slither over bridges, coil and cut along the gutters and walkways. Windows burn orange in blackened sockets and bristling lawns stab and carve, the waning moon, a rolling eye. Any other night though, it’s quite pleasant for an evening stroll… really.



October’s 13/#13 - Mixed Bag

It’s a mixed bag on our street but we’ve got it sorted out. The trick is to start with the Richardsons across from my house because they’re loaded and not chintzy with the sweets and buy nothing but Ghirardelli chocolate and oh man, it’s all King Size. Then it’s next door to the Shrewburys who are professional Christians but goddamn amateurs when it comes to trust and they naively leave their bountiful offerings out on a chair next to a pumpkin where we happily load up our bags to start the evening. From then on we take our chances, for it’s a ‘grab and run’ fest as we head around the block.

I’ll tell you, it’s hard to say if it’s a scarecrow that answers the door or just old Mr. Finn in suspenders yelling, “you damn kids get off my yard!” but we know he tends to be loose in his thoughts so we’ll wait patiently until he dribbles some candy into our bags though last year he dropped two cans of Campbell’s tomato soup in mine… then we’ll slide next door to Dr. Mullin’s house which is no problem as he is happy to dump handfuls of sugary loot into our bags being our family dentist and all… then it’s two doors down to Joey Perdomo’s place which smells like cabbage and Joey’s old man, Mr. Perdomo, will yell something like ‘those little fags again’ from his broken recliner … then we’ll drift back across the street, through the hedge, where we’ll skip the young couple at number 113 because they never answer the door though we’ll stop to take a peek because last year I swear I saw the woman standing at the living room window with her bare snacks on display… then it’s over to the Wilfords where no matter how good my disguise, Mrs. Wilford will squeal through her clown makeup, “that’s a super costume William!” while she doles out homemade bullshit like wooden cookies and teeth-breaking toffee which she’ll say are “healthy alternatives” or some crap and we’ll smile and shout, “gee, thanks Mrs. Wilford!!!” then grenade them into old man Finn’s yard on the way home…but not until we’ve hit the Docklees, Crabtrees, Neidermiers and Chans who are all pretty generous with the candy and compliments, though the year I wore my Zorro outfit and lost my moustache and hat, Mr. Chan made the mistake of thinking I was some sort of a black-caped Ninja or something and everybody laughed at me. One thing for sure, we’ll skip the houses where we know the loners live because there’s no need taking a chance on getting poisoned or ending up in Emergency with a razorblade lodged between your teeth and gums… I mean it’s no way to end the night unable to bite into all that pure sweetness.

An Uncertain Sky

Up past the forestry station along an empty stretch of highway, O.D. pushed hard against a rising headwind. He felt the resistance of the air against his body, the whoosh of wet wheels on slick pavement, the hypnotic draw of the blushing horizon. His breath wheezed in rhythm to the clink of the bike chain, the spattering rain drumming along in broken time to an old radio song that muttered in his head.

“Well, I dreamed I saw the silver… space ships flying… in the yellow haze… of the sun…

A gray ache gripped his tired bones but he forced the pedals harder, slippery feet on edge, legs wide apart to avoid knocking his knees against the intruding bag that dangled awkwardly from the handlebars. It’d been a while since he’d brought anything back that appeared useful but now was the time and he imagined they’d be pleased, especially Jemma.

“There were children crying… and colors flying… all around the chosen… ones.”

He was a piano of a man, his six foot six frame suffocating the rail-thin bike that creaked and wobbled under him. A plastic garbage bag bloomed over his wide shoulders – a poor man’s raincoat; it whipped and popped like snapping fingers against the wind. Gray beard gathered like wool along the upper ridge of his cheekbones, infringed heavily, swept down his moon face and bottomed out in a heavy hornet’s nest tangle ten inches below his jaw. His bright gray eyes - - round as saucers - - focused on the crowded rows of black trees that fenced the highway, millions of giant palings left pounded in the earth by industrious absent gods.

“All in a dream… all… in a dream…”

O.D. worked the words, wondered what was real, what was nightmare, wondered what had happened previous to this day’s passing, the time before, years of dim memories impenetrable, the future down the road like the setting sun, glowing in and out of view above an uncertain sky.


The folks at Haven House tended to step aside when O.D. wandered the aisles of the store picking through recycled goods. He seemed harmless enough, but his polished stare would send some skittering in another direction. Some of the staff huddled and whispered in conference when he passed, talked openly when he left.

I heard he went crazy when his wife and boy left him, got heavy into hallucinogens… nah, nah, word was he encountered strange flying objects one time, yoo-who, coo-coo! no, no, I heard he snapped and killed his wife and her lover, buried them somewhere…no, listen, Otis Digby was a good man, private that’s all… nope, here’s the truth, the guy’s a serial killer, I mean shit, look at him…


Few cars passed. On the slick curve, O.D. saw it, the pale blue fabric hanging from the shrub. He stopped and wiped water from his washed up face. He waited for a lone lazy truck to pass, bent to tinker with the front wheel and when the truck evaporated like a ghost in the distant mist, stepped from the bike and made his way across the long weeded burm. Overhead, rigid trees rose like thin pins poking against the lowering sky. The blue rag tucked against the dark camouflage; below it, a tangled dent hugged the ground and punched into dead limbs as if a low animal had burrowed through. O.D. scanned the empty highway once more and then knifed the bike through the wet shrub and disappeared, digested whole in one quick swallow by the waiting forest.


He came to the clearing two hundred yards in, a conclusion of trees uprooted from the earth. It formed a secluded backdrop against the surrounding forest. In the center, a worn card table with bent knees listed precariously. It was covered with a red and white banner from a big-box discount store, the Target logo prominently bulls-eyed on top. Dull rain tapped along the surface, overfilled a white vase containing wilted sunflowers. Propped next to it, a framed picture of a smiling young couple.
Two bodies - - one male and one female - - reclined, roped to yellowed kitchen chairs in front of the table. They tilted in the mud, a magician’s trick gone badly. The young male was crudely tied - - a diagonal plank - - his neck secured to the back of one chair by thin ribbon, ankles below the mud, a battered suitcase sinking in the mud beside him. The naked woman was seated, her breasts glossy smooth and featureless, a rag of wet plastered hair atop her head. The rain ran in rivulets down their bodies, pooled around them in wide puddles.

“Brought something Jemma,” O.D. said and advanced on the female.

He emptied the bag he’d been carrying. It contained a few items of fabric - assorted clothing, long sleeve shirts, a couple of suit coats, pants and one yellow dress.

“I’d hoped to have found a new wig, something nice for the journey. No such luck.”

He studied the confounding sky.

“It’s time don’t you think?” he said, gently laying out the dress.

“All in a dream… all… in a dream…”

The rain fell harder, pattering to a soft hush. Distant thunder boomed like war cannon. A few birds flew. The mannequins, bleached and lifeless, said nothing, only stared into a sunless world.

They waited.

Las Cruces

Smith sat quietly inside the stagecoach, thumbing the rotating cylinder. Bullets had been flying. When the coach stopped, the guard riding shotgun had dropped to the ground, heavy like a sack of barley seed, a hole through his throat.

“Everybody out,” one of the riders had shouted.

Smith was thinking about a simple premise his Pa had taught back on the farm.
“Size up the situation. Figure out the possibilities. Take your best shot.”
Smith and his wife Millie had worked hard, scraped the land bare for the meager return the parched ground had been willing to release. It was never enough. His Millie deserved better. Now, after losing the farm and his Pa, they were headed south.

“I said, everybody out.”

Smith gave Millie a nod, then calmly stepped from the stage. Without hesitation, he flashed the gun and fired four shots, his steady hand as sure as the truth. The three riders tumbled from their vaulting horses.

The stagecoach driver, Hank Barrett sat gravely wounded on the carriage deck.
“You saved us son,” he whispered. “The bank too.” He rubbed a slow hand along the silver strong box. “Over ten thousand dollars worth I’d say.”

Smith rotated the cylinder; there were two cartridges left. He thought about his Pa’s words as he put one through Barrett’s left eye. He turned to Millie who looked out at him through the coach window, a beatific smile crossing her face.

“Darlin’,” he asked. “Would you like to see Mexico?”

Themes

Theme: Darkness Before Light

Dark Side of the Moon

The moon was full, glazed, the size of the world. He watched it eye him through the transom in his living room. A lover’s moon or the dead’s marker? he pondered. The latter he was sure. What was the moon after all but a lifeless, airless place. An ancient pebble drifting down the dark void.

The living room lit a deathly blue. Ice cold breaths smoked from his mouth in ghastly white plumes. He stretched his withered legs, curled long fingers around the armrest of his recliner. He squeezed nails into it, the leather splitting under his grip. Blood iced through his veins, surging hotter as he let the dark overtake him. He stared into the moon’s disfigured face. After dark, there is hope for light, he mused. Light entertainment perhaps and chuckled at the thought. Dark and light. Life and death; his awakening to another. I am the dark of the moon, he said out loud. He almost screamed.

There was a segment of cloud crossing the moon now, a blue gray veil, moving and boiling like a spider’s nest. The cloud looked like Jesus, the face hung deathly white, a ragged beard tormented the chin. His eyes narrowed. The winds swirled. The taxi would arrive soon. There were dinner plans tonight. He would insist the cabbie join him. The jesus face changed. The beard dipped like a tornado funnel, a pointed devil’s beard. A grin cut his face.



Theme: The ‘Golden’ Rule

Golden Boy

The fields ran by, flashing on the glass screen like an old-time movie reel. Ripples of prairie wheat and corn, a two second frame of crooked farm road, a six second frame of dirt brown field… then another… and another… a zoom in of a giant silo and cows standing still… then back to the moving picture - a new theme introduced this time – sunflower yellow fields. While we watched, we took in the drone – that sound of rubber on the road humming below - a certain hum that allowed our eyes to drop heavy, pulling us down helplessly into easy sleep. The sun reflected on the windows, the ghosts of three boys and a girl revealed, propped against the doors and pillows; on the radio, a crooner’s thin hypnotic voice attempted to infiltrate our back seat reverie.

The car shuddered as passing big rigs shoved and shouldered us, like over-sized bullies pushing down school hallways, plowing weaker bodies into lockers. With light fading, dad silenced the radio and piped his mantra again, something he’d repeated every few miles or so. “Anybody see it yet?”

I didn’t want to miss it… to be the first to pick out the Golden Boy on the horizon, the sun glinting off its golden torch, signifying we were almost home. Eyes wide open, I jockeyed for position on the seat, cheek against the glass. Shit, no sibling was going to beat me out of seeing it first.



Theme: Renewal

I Have A Confession To Make

It’s that time of month again and I’ve got a confession to make. The old man’s made it clear that we’ve all gotta go today. Shit, it’s not even Sunday. He says it’s a sort of “divine intervention” moment, a time to expel guilt, renew the spirit, and wipe the deep stains from our souls. Sounds to me like we’re changing our underwear. I don’t know what he’s done to feel guilty… other than to yell and falsely accuse me!!! of punching my little brother when he, asshole!!! started it!!

Anyway, this confessing thing is quite embarrassing and trusting a complete stranger with your most intimate failings is sheer lunacy. I, for one, will opt to blatantly lie. And I’ll use my trusty routine of standards too: lied, swore, had bad thoughts. Through the grate, I see Father Farrell sitting there in the dark. He’s young and might give me a pass. Looks like he’s writing stuff down. Maybe he wants to be a novelist someday, perhaps write a ‘tell-all’ book to rival the Bible… hehe! Shit… is that blasphemy? Fuck, that’s a mortal sin I bet. God I’m doomed.

Little brother insisted I go first. Fine. He’ll get his. He’s going to say the same bullshit I’m going to lie about and Father’s going to see he’s shitting him and hopefully call him on it. Then we’ll see if there’s such a thing as “divine intervention” … or righteous punishment for telling Pop on me.


Theme: Heavy Man, Heavy

Gun Play

In the cafeteria, the shooter takes out Mr. Hollis. BAM! … BAMBAM!… a ruler smacking a table and Hollis hits the wall and disappears down, like the floor just opened under him. The guy – it’s Billy Krazik - turns and aims at Jamie Stockwell, sitting there calmly as if he’s in the play or something and he takes two to the head. He rocks a little, then sits still. The fuck moves forward, looking right at me, our eyes lock and he points the gun… I peer down the black hole, see Krazik’s chewed red fingernail twitch slightly to the left as he fires off a barrage of shots. BAM! … BAMBAMBAM!… tables splinter and scatter behind me; there are heavy thumps and screams and I blink uncontrollably, a deranged twist creasing my face.

And then there’s Colby, backpack in hand, crossing the floor. He strides in quick purposeful steps. He looks insane. Parallel to Krazik, light as a ghost, I don’t think he sees it coming.

I’m woven in a cocoon. On the soundless floor, I watch bodies twitch. Heads cover. Krazik’s moved into the hallways. My chest weighs heavy, bubbling pink. Colby has nothing to say, his eyes vacant, surprised. Earlier this morning he boasted he’d brought his old man’s Glock to school… just to show it off you understand. Colby was cool… just playing … but well… Krazik’s crazy and he decided to swipe it and play the heavy… for real. He plays it well.

The Attraction

He’d passed the same attraction three days running. Down the leafy back road, just off the golf course and up around the bend, it waited patiently for him like an old friend ready for play. The monument of snapped limbs and discarded brush stacked high, a rambling golden pyre, bone-dry, quivering like an expectant lover. He had hoped running would alleviate the burning need, create another game with less to lose. He slowed to a trot as the mind game caught hold; a glowing ember of it circled - wanted to touch with one strike of a match, one finger-flick of a clean cigarette - lightly crackling “you’re it.” Later, from his spot on the hill, he watched it run and play, quietly glowing hot and bright, pleased with what it had started.

It was faint at first, like a distant train whistle calling from somewhere along the darkening horizon, but now the sound was louder. It was not a whistle but the blare of wailing sirens and he relaxed a bit. The sirens smothered his pounding heart with a blanket of relief like of cool rain and he licked his dry lips.
“It will be alright,” he whimpered, almost collapsing. He turned to leave and his eye caught a glimpse of something that did drop him to his knees: a surging wall of orange flame boiling through a row of trees that kissed along a ridge of large homes hugging the golf course. “What have you done?” it said.

The first engine arrived and a fireman heavy with gear stumbled from the side railing. He was shouting instruction to the other firemen as they scrambled from the vehicle, serpentine hoses uncoiling over the road like spilled guts from some reddened beast. On the hill he watched them play, mesmerized as flames took the first two houses. They flowered, a hushing sound like marshmallows to the flame. “It’s just a game,” he whispered, his face shiny, angelic. “We can stop anytime.”

When he was very young, it spoke to him, drew him like moth to flame. His mother had seen it in him too - this calling - had noticed how his eyes would light as they stared blankly into the blazing fireplace. In church she encouraged him to light a votive candle for lost souls and the dearly departed. She believed it was goodness he saw, some guiding light, the flame a source of warmth and comfort. She was wrong. His father, mean and drunk, saw it exactly as it was. “You’re it,” he said, flicking a flaming match toward him while playing on the floor with his older brother, Davey. “Oh you’re it alright,” he said and laughed between pulls of the bottle and drags on the hand-rolled smoke. It was a contemptuous laugh, malicious. But it was quickly silenced the first time the boy - quick as a viper - snatched the lit match as it bounced off his chest. His eyes widened as he felt the sting of the flame, then an overwhelming sadness as it quickly extinguished, the burn searing his palm. He didn’t mind; he liked it… this new game. “Fire’s a motherfucker… a beast,” his father said, holding the shaky cigarette up close to eyes. He lightly blew on the smoldering orange ember. “It’s like you. It’s tricky.” His eyes faltered, then drowsily dropped down upon him. “Unplanned,” he mumbled. “Unplanned and tricky. That’s it.” The boy didn’t understand all the things his father said but he trusted the man knew what he spoke of. He and Davey rolled and played about on the floor, dumping plastic soldiers and Tinker toys into their father’s stained fireman’s helmet. Crinkled matches lay scattered about the carpet, as black and as brittle as torched bodies.

He started setting fires when he was eleven. The attraction was a rough clearing out in the old dump near Rollins Swamp. It seemed a safe place to play, with so much ready to burn, so much smoldering there just beneath the surface of discarded trash. It was a game - “I’m it… you’re it” he’d say - and flick matches one by one from the long matchbox, each one tumbling, some flaming out, others burning bright as they landed in a scratch of bramble and oily boxes. They quickly caught on. He heard the voice in the crackle - his father’s voice - a soft whisper at first that would detonate into a terrifying roar. “YOU’RE IT!” it boomed.

He controlled the fires at first, kept them small but the day came when the winds seemed to shift out of nowhere, the world opened wide and he was confronted with the beast. It stood before him, alive, taunting and unstable. He was not afraid. He was terrified. It ran around him, leering, its fiery tongue lolling and whispering around his ears. It quickly turned and rolled toward the swamp, like some living creature eager for water to soothe it, to cool it. He followed and waited. Instead of water, it found fuel to feed. The dry bramble swamp exploded and it consumed everything, its gaping maw, red and hot.

He had run then, somehow escaped through the thicket, excited and horrified, sprawling flat in a ditch as the fire engines screamed past down the smoke-choked road. As the last truck flared by, he glanced up in time to see his father riding the top of the engine’s cab, saw the terrified look as their eyes locked. He never saw him again. Outmatched and trapped in the swamp, his father and three other firemen were consumed by the monster’s fury.

There was no other consequence; the origin of the fire blamed on conditions at the dump, on shifting weather, an unfortunate and horrible accident the papers said. After that, he ran in a futile attempt to outrun what had happened. Then in his mid-teens, he started running with the fire, hoping it might grow tired of the game and burn itself out on its own. But it circled… circled and chased him. Always.

The fireman stood frozen. The blaze towered above him, the heat an open oven wrinkling the air. It had taken hold everywhere, jumped the street to the left of the golf course, rolling like a wave toward the opposite curb. Smoke churned between the remaining houses, hugged the gravel in a low thick fog as orange spikes flickered and peeked through like demon eyes in the night. He felt his partner then - Conrad - at his side grabbing his arm; he was shouting, barely audible through his mask over the roar.
“We gotta go… go now!”

For a moment, he thought he might faint. His vision blurred and he felt disorientated as if falling down a funneling dark tunnel. He thought he heard Conrad again but the voice was different, familiar.

And he knew.

The voice was high above him, on the hill somewhere, his brother’s voice screaming, screaming. He turned to look but all he saw was Conrad’s face wet and pleading, the beast rising behind him.
“We gotta go Davey,” he shouted. “We gotta go… NOW!”

The Color of Warm and Cold

I exit the building onto River Avenue and flip my collar high around my ears, pulling my neck in like a turtle in his shell. The café is only half a block downstream but I’m a frozen fish when I arrive. At the counter, I order a large mocha house blend and wheat toast.

“To go please,” I tell the girl, “with extra butter and cream.”

She is shy and plump and moves like deliberate molasses. Her name is Chloe or Joni or something like that. She doesn’t wear a nametag and I can’t understand Mosca when he lays his bad English on her. Her straw-blond hair is short with a splendid slash of emerald veering across the one side. I imagine her an artist in the outside world. She wears pink glasses - ‘SW#6857 Pink Moment’ the paint chip sample book would reveal and wide rimmed. They frame beautifully warm eyes. I wonder if she knows how beautiful and warm they are or if anyone has ever told her that. ‘Burnt Sienna’, I’d say; a standard color but not standard for her by any means. She doesn’t look me directly in the eye, which tells me she may like me. Or maybe she is self-conscious about my eye, the left one that droops a bit. It’s just lazy, that’s all. I think she may find it rude to stare. She exudes a certain style, displays a confident palette; I can tell by the way she serves customers, efficient with a clean counter and orderly napkins and silverware.

Man, it’s snowing like a million angels exploded out there. The flakes are the size of downed feathers. The city plowed the streets yesterday and created huge snowdrifts along the walkways. There aren’t too many fools out in the cold. The ones that are, slip along in the narrow grooves that act as walkways. I damn near break my neck maneuvering the icy channel back to work and it’s not because I slipped. I’m laughing too hard. Up ahead, two approaching people have fallen. They stand again; the man and woman paw and grope each other for balance. They’re drunk as hell. Two steps and he is down. The woman bends and yells at him, expecting something impossible. He rises like a zombie, barely stable, and then it’s her turn. She falls straight-legged sideways like a tree in the forest. My eyes hurt. I shouldn’t laugh. I may be next. Tears freeze like clear glue on my face and I can’t see. I dab my eyes with the sleeve of my stiff overcoat. It leaves a glistening stain.

I enter the building and Claire is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She’s leaving for an appointment. She’s decided to have a cigarette first. The most interesting thing about Claire is her hair. It’s jet black and shrouds around a white oval face, a little egg in a nest. It cascades in a pool, splashes over her shoulders. It’s quite beautiful really, even when it’s up.
“I wish we could run away,” she says, blowing smoke against the windowpane.
I nod and look at my feet. The snow melts around my shoes, bleeding an ever- spreading puddle.

Claire has a boyfriend. I’ve never met the guy. I never ask too many questions. I wonder what he doesn’t have that I possess. I wonder what she sees in me? She hasn’t said. I’m cool with that. I work in the paint department. I’m not that colorful. I’ve been there five years and I’m not even manager.

Claire’s a nice girl, smart and attractive in an ordinary way. She holds a safe managerial job - executive assistant. She’s been with the company for almost a year. We hang out a bit. Privately. She prefers it that way. We’ve never been intimate. I have seen her in a bathing suit though.

She lives in a two-story house on a decent street with shady trees. She rents the bottom floor suite. I wonder why the boyfriend of three years doesn’t live with her. The landlady, a Ukrainian woman occupies the upstairs and is particular to guests hanging about. “He’s a nice boy,” Claire says up the stairs and a door closes. She gives me a smirk.

It’s a blistering summer day, the kind where the humidity wears your skin out, squeezes your body like a wetsuit.

“I’m going to change,” she says. “Make yourself at home.”

Her apartment is ordinary with dark wood floors, a plain taupe carpet. The walls are a darker taupe and pictureless. She doesn’t entertain much of a color palette. A couch and chair look new, sleek black, straight from a CB2 catalog. The coffee table isn’t clear. It’s covered with travel magazines.

Claire exits her bedroom wearing a bikini. It is celadon green, though brighter, ‘SW#6705 High Strung’, I’d say. A saturated splash of yellow overtakes it. It shouts ‘SUMMER!’ It screams ‘you can fuck me!’ I love that color. I could give you its mixed color values. I want to paint my bedroom that exact color. I’ve never considered her like this. Her achromatic breasts sway freely inside the full halter and I see her hips dance, suggesting that I do something. She stands with her knees turned slightly inward and she bows as she wrestles her hair up into a ponytail. “God it’s hot out there, don’t you think?” She glances up sideways; a coy smile parts her lips.

“I wish we could run away. Go some place warmer, different. Away from here.”
She stares out onto the street. I wait.
“Would you go?”
I wonder if it’s a question or a request. The brown bag holding my toast is weightless. My coffee is cold mocha. Chloe is happy to give me a refill. The drunken couple has arrived and stopped in front of the door. Their arms rotate, pinwheel through the air. Stiff hands claw for purchase. They grasp at snowflakes, floating angel’s wings. Then they fall.

Motel 6

Room 205
In between long tasty tokes on a reedy blunt, Benny Kaz allowed his thoughts to bounce down the hall to the dude in Room 203. The unshaven man - older, sixties maybe, white shirt and dress pants - had given him the ‘shifty eye’ scan as they’d passed in the hallway, a scan any hustler knew suggested one of two things: keep walking or move for the hardware. The man had carried an over-sized briefcase - heavy by the way he two-handed it – and Benny K was positive it contained something valuable like money or drugs or better still, both. Benny, now strung out and twitching for relief wondered if this man was a better score than the one he was waiting on - a hook up with the delivery maid and his much needed supply. He lit another reed, a new score orchestrating in his head, his thoughts swirling around the older man; there was something else going on here… like maybe the dude was the big cheese with all the goodies… the delivery maid just the mouse with crumbly samples and he, Benny the K… the recipient of a golden opportunity. Benny rolled off the bed, pulled on his jacket - the snub-nose weighted heavy in the pocket - and went to the door.


Room 203
“Guy wuz’ a punk,” Powell grunted as he threw the oversized briefcase on the bed and popped the side clips; he’d better watch his back. Inside the open case lay eight neat rows of crisp twenties, a family of Jackson’s staring back like a repeating Warhol pop art piece. Powell smiled a shark’s grin and stretched, feeling the coolness of the gun nestled under his shirt, snug against his lower back, then went to the window and looked out into the steady rain; the parking lot sat quiet except for a couple of young preppies quickly unloading golf bags from the back of their dripping station wagon. “Ahh… a not so relaxing getaway,” he chuckled. His own getaway from the bank he’d robbed across the line a week ago had been a rather smooth one. He pulled a flask from the case and took two long tugs, decided quickly that he needed ice, recalled an ice machine just outside his door.


Room 201
Kreskie swiped the door key and entered. He went to the window, scanned the parking lot, then pulled the drapes closed as his rookie partner Digby lugged in the golf bags and dropped them with a ‘thunk’ onto the bed. “Manager says our man’s down the hall in 203.” They’d tracked him quick after HP saw him pass, recognized the APB car description and done the smart thing and called in the FBI. Kreskie unzipped the first bag and pulled out the M4 and fed the magazine. “We’re not waiting for backup…this guy’s going down quick before any more people die,” and he turned for the door.


Room 202
Stella Beem quickly finished cleaning the bathroom, opting to skip a set of fresh towels and soap bars for the shower. She was nervous about the drug drop; there was always the chance of these things going bad. It was a sweet little deal though: Hugo supplying and setting up the connection, she making the drop and collecting the cash. A few more of these and she’d have enough put away to vanish out of this place, reappear in dreamy California somewhere and a new life. Stella went out into the hallway and stood still for a moment, glancing up and down the hallway’s tunneling emptiness. She squatted in front of her cart, parked next to the floor’s vending machine and was about to pull out a towel folded around a fat bag of crystal when a door clicked open to her right; she froze, her eyes dropping to her Colt laying beneath a set of clean towels.


Room 204
Kyra Downs stepped out the door, faltered as the baby kicked - hard this time - and she uttered a tired groan. Gently rubbing her stomach, she padded across to the ice machine, ice bucket in hand. She noticed two men at the end of the hall walking slowly toward her with what she thought were closed umbrellas. There was a click at her feet and she saw a maid kneeling by her cart, the maid’s eyes not registering on her but focused wide just beyond her shoulder. Kyra turned, sensing someone close behind, the air defined by the distinct sweet odor of weed. There was another click then - a door opened from the room opposite them - and an older man stepped into the hallway, one hand now reaching behind his back and someone yelled, “FREEZE!”


Room 206
Simon Dennis was quite pleased with the progress of his novel. His old nemesis - writer’s block - had hounded him for weeks and his wife’s idea to getaway to a private location and perspective had been the perfect remedy. His characters were finally coming to life - the cops and the robber, the girl on the run, the shady druggies…all of it. Simon stared out into the motel’s parking lot, the rain falling heavy now. The lot was empty save for his old Volvo and two passing police cars. He looked at his watch – it was time to check out - and he went to the door and stepped out into the hallway.

The Cold Locker

It is a place of dusty dreams. The twisted light cord hanging from the center is gallows rope, its naked light bulb, an abandoned blackening body when lit, barely gives life. The floor grades down to a centered sewer hole for plumbing that was never finished. Stagnant water encircles it, left from old rain that drips in and stays for weeks. Nobody comes down here much but when they do, it is for jars of fruit in the room buried in the far corner; the ‘cold locker’ the young boys call it. It is cold, as cold as a tomb.

A tower of boxes near the stairs seems to shift. Bundles of yellow newspapers stacked next to them huddle like crooked gnomes; they reek something grim. There are paint cans and open tins of varnish near a barren worktable. Long hooks grip it, holding it tight against the wall. Rows of cigarette burn decorate its edge. I remember them. The burns. The partially sealed room next to the worktable allows no light. It is the old coal chute.

A newspaper lays crumpled on the worktable, open to a page, damp with age, wrinkled like old skin. Cold air seals the headline news and photos of the Garrisons. There is a photo of Red Garrison being led handcuffed from the house. There is a picture of his wife Cora, slumped in the back seat of a police car. A blanket partially covers her head. In the corner, a picture of Beale, their oldest daughter, head crooked to the camera, her eyes – shark eyes – staring dead into the lens. Their faces are grainy black and white. Their faces are the same face I see reflected back on the glass jars in the cold locker. My face. No. That’s not true. My face is different. The eyes are the same. Maybe. There are no photos of me. Only reflections.

Beale Garrison moves about upstairs, pattering alone with the cats. I sense their smell. They sense me too and they don’t come down. Beale comes for the baskets of fruit stacked along the wall in the cold locker. She doesn’t venture to this side of the basement. She returned to the house after Red and Cora were sentenced to prison. She was never implicated. I know better. I know what she did. What they did to the child.

Ruth was her name. My name. Time muddles memories. The years meld and twist, bind up in a foggy dream. It feels like a dream. I don’t know if it is. There’s no one to set it right. I am happy to be her, to be Ruth, to be someone. Ruth is gone. She didn’t survive. It says so in the newspaper under the stairwell. Every moment is thick, fuzzy as if looking through a cocooned web. My thoughts come down to me, dream-like, a milky gray and then blackness.

They burn me. Tie and cut me in the coal chute where it is private. I am born different. Deformed. “God’s mistake!” echoes in my dream. “God’s mistake!” There hands are eager. Deliberate. Impatient. There is hurt and blame. I read it in the paper. I don’t know how that is possible. I don’t know how to read. It said I died when I was two. I don’t remember dying.

Red Garrison built this house. He was a craftsman, the newspaper said. He was good with his hands. He made a hobby of carving intricate wood pieces, birds and animals, innocent creatures. I was his hobby too. I remember his fingers. Long. Agile. His hands would harden. Turn dangerous. Cora knew. The doctors at the hospital rebuilt her cheekbone. She said it was an accident while working on the house. We know the truth.

Two neighborhood boys sometimes visit Beale. They are young too. They’ve heard the stories. They’ve been told to stay away from this house. Young boys don’t listen. They are curious. They come to taste the peaches that she preserves in jars. I want to play with them when they come to the cellar. They don’t want to stay. They are afraid. They lurk together, watching the darkened corners. The edges are black cement, an abyss. The minimal light never ventures far. ‘Spider-child’ I hear them say. ‘In the coal chute. Where the spider-child was kept.’

I’m drawn to the cold locker. The baskets stacked along the wall hold the fresh fruit - apples, peaches, pears. They smell sweet. Alive. The light glows on their skin. They were taken from the tree. A tree of life. I know that somehow. I sense it. The fruit did not die. It was given a second life. A new life. The light is warm. It sparks bright on the golden glass jars. I watch the boys gather them, full of the fruit I’ve never tasted. I see their faces as they open the tops and slip out the dripping wedges. ‘She won’t know,’ they whisper licking their fingers. ‘Sweet,’ they say. I wish to taste too. I wish to eat with them. I wouldn’t hurt them. I hear Beale shout for them not to dawdle if they know what’s good for them. Their eyes quickly dart about. They don’t stay long. They gather the jars, then quickly scramble up the stairs, clawing over each other, neither wanting to be the last up. They think something like a hand is reaching for their leg. It is.

My withered arms are bent at the elbow, my hands hooked down, but yesterday I managed to climb to the top of the cellar stairs for the first time. At the far end of the kitchen, the two boys sat waiting. I stood in the darkened frame of the cellar door as Beale moved past. I filled the doorway. I’ve grown some. I don’t know how. She didn’t feel my breath kiss against her neck. She was carrying a bowl of peaches. They were soured. I wanted to reach out and touch her. Tonight I will. Tonight.

Clarence Downe was waiting by his truck when Hawkes showed up. Two other men leaned against a flatbed parked behind, smoking harsh hand-rolled cigarettes.
“Moanin,” Hawkes said as he spilled out of his Suburban. A wide Panama hat covered his round bald head; a pair of blue bib-overalls did their best to stretch over his massive frame. He puffed when he spoke.
“You must be Clarence,” he said, stretching out a beefy hand.
Clarence gripped it and gave it a fair shake. He was a short stocky man with a tall shock of ‘70’s curly black hair and his skin shone black as oil in the morning heat.
“Yes sir, Mr. Hawkes, pleased to meet you,” he said, his steel blue eyes peering at the sky. “Looks like it’s ‘gonna be a blister peeler.”
It was a cloudless day, cicadas already beginning to sing. Hawkes nodded at the flatbed behind Clarence’s truck.
“Brought the bruiser I see. I think we’re going to need it.”
A large Cat bulldozer, school bus-yellow sat dirty on the flatbed. It had seen better days.
“Yep. She’s all primed and ready to do business. Brought a couple of my boys along too.”
He nodded toward the two smokers, then to the house.
“What we got here?”
Hawkes reached awkwardly through the cab window and pulled a rolled document from the cab of the Suburban and waved it at Clarence.
“It’s the old Garrison place. Got a court order here to tear her down, the whole she-bang.”
He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.
“I figure if we set the Cat over in the west side corner there we can get her started, get her going. Should start to collapse I hope.”
Hawkes moped his face with a rag.
“Sure as hell don’t want to go in there,” he said.
Clarence surveyed the property.
“She don’t look so bad. What’s wrong with the place?”
“You ain’t from these parts I see,” Hawkes said.
He took a long, silent look at the house.
“It belonged to the Garrisons some years back,” he said. “Place never seen anything but misery.”
He paused and spat, as if the words had been distasteful in his mouth.
“They killed their little girl in there. Ruthie.”
Clarence looked up at him, his head slightly cocked, his eyes thin.
“Got them life in prison for it. Their oldest daughter Beale got off. Couldn’t pin nothing on her.”
The other two men had stamped their cigarettes and moved closer.
“Beale came back and took up residence again,” Hawkes continued. “There was a public outcry but well,” he paused, “it’s a free country for the supposed innocent, ain’t it? Turned out to be a big mistake.”
He stepped towards the house and stopped at the fence, ran his hand along the gate.
“Where is she?” Clarence said. “This Bea person.”
“Beale,” Hawkes said. “Well she’s dead now too.”
Clarence squinted up at him.
“There were two young neighborhood boys used to visit her,” Hawkes said. “They didn’t know no better, just kids, told to keep away but they didn’t. Beale murdered them. Poisoned them. Used some tainted fruit she was luring them in with I guess.”
He paused.
“Then she hung herself in the basement.”
Hawkes shook his head.
“Cops found her swinging down there.” He paused, rubbed his slack jaw.
“Didn’t make sense though.”
“Why’s that?” Clarence said, studying him.
“Cops couldn’t figure how she did it, hanging herself I mean. There was nothing beneath her feet for her to stand on. Nothing near her at all.”
Hawkes stood unsteadily at the gate.
“It’s as if she was put there.”