fiction – Page 22 – three good words

November 5, 2014February 9, 2015

hook, line…

Not PG rated

Word was out. Chris ‘Dizzy’ Leroy was out of the clink, his boys were already waiting. Tall enough to try for the pro leagues if he’d ever had a head for school, Chris was muscular too, inked up nice, he always went to the pros. Everyone called him Dizzy, he no longer remembered why, just like no one knew he never liked it.He was Chris, but the only person who called him that was his Gran, Gran who opened her arms wide when he walked up the stairs, smiling ‘My boy’s back’ before hugging him with her tiny arms. Said nothing about how strong the woman was though. Dragged him down the street once, nearly tore his ear off, hollerin’ how often she told him to get back when the lights came on, he had no goddamn manners. That was Gran though, tough as nails. Best woman on the whole fuckin’ planet.

Friday night, and Tala was out clubbing with her girls. It was just them, no guys, they were going to have some fun. Tala was in the best mood. The week was good, her boss praised her for finishing the project perfectly in record time, and she meant it too. Nobody looked pissed, she was getting ‘genuine feedback’ as they called it. She could see that they were taking her seriously now, she really did know what she was doing. Those night courses really were helping, it was good that she followed through with that.

Now it was Friday, and Tala felt like partying, celebrating, simply enjoying herself, and going out with her girls was just the thing. The club was great, the house was packed, everyone was having such an awesome time Tala just felt happy. Then she turned and saw him. Great build. The kind of chocolate skin that made a girl lick her lips. Ripped. You could see it past that shirt. And a calm face, the kind of seriously handsome dark face with eyes that just sucked you in. She looked a little more, then she stopped. Her Moma told her to stay away from them. No matter how good they looked. ‘They like sugar, girl. The better they look, the worse they are. You need to look out for your health with that head o’ yours. It’s just too good to waste on all that honey that don’t keep your stomach full.’ Or the other one, it was last weekend actually, they were out shopping and of course her Moma caught her looking at Will Delaney who was picking up some ice and had grown up to look real good. Tala got, ‘Stop givin’ him those looks,’ for that. ‘Next thing you know he’s hangin’ around my porch like some lost puppy. What? Look at him. Best way to get yourself big, and I ain’t talkin’ about fat. And a Delaney too. All talk and no sense, those boys. Why’re you still lookin’? Didn’t you hear anything I just said?’ So Tala, dancing in the club with her girls, Tala turned back to her drink and didn’t look again.

Chris had decided it was time to see people. He hadn’t been with a woman since he was out of the joint, and he wanted to see some again. There was this new place everyone was talkin’ about so he decided to join. He had to get back to normal, remember how it was outside. It was his second time now, the first time he was in juvi at fourteen, Gran nearly killed him after. This second time it was either three months for him or six years for Dwayne, his cousin, who talked him into driving that bullshit car… just thinking about it got Chris to the wrong side of angry. He’d known it was bad. He just didn’t think Dwayne was that fucking stupid. Still, it was six years for his cousin, if he didn’t say nothin’, so he spoke up. Dwayne got two, he got three months since he’d been steady since Gran nearly put him in a coffin after juvi, but the Feds had to do something, and the judge knew it.

Anyway, he was out now, finally, the air smelled real again, and there were women everywhere. Chris didn’t want to rush it though, push it too fast and suddenly you had a set of claws in your back you never saw coming. Or some thug who decided you’d looked at his girl wrong. So Chris hung back, watched first, loving what he was seeing. The place was packed up tight, and the women… yeah, this was – what the – There, again. That girl, dancing. Fuck… Everything, just everything about her was… He wanted to feel that ass in his hands, all round. He wanted those legs around him, he wanted her naked and wet, fuck, he’d fuck her so good, she’d never want anythin’ else – there was no way he was just gonna stand around and do nothin’.

Chris walked up to her when one of her girls went to get more drinks. He stayed to the side and watched her, he didn’t want to come on too fast , but fuck she was… He waited till she looked. She did and smiled, shyly. She had style. There were no guys around her, and she only danced with her girls. When they left the floor he sent her a drink, something simple but good and she appreciated it, smiling at him and raising her glass. He could see how her girls worked her to do something, how she looked and got all shy again and smiled. He helped her by walking half the distance. Finally, she came over. She said Hi, and he nodded, said what he had to say, what her name was, who she was with. She told him, smiling like that, still shy. He wanted to peel that top off her and see those tits that were just waiting for his mouth, fuck they were… Her skin looked… he’d forgotten how perfect, perfect really was.

They talked some his name, hers, Tala, Chris, what she was doin’ out with her girls, the dj, the music, the club, until one of his boys crashed in and he saw how she got scared. Ray wasn’t the type a girl like her would look at twice, and Ray just slapped his back and nearly fucked it all up. She went back to her girls, ran back actually, and Chris tried not to show how pissed he was. Fuck Ray. She didn’t look at him again, so he did his best to get rid of Ray and finally could got him to stay busy with some girl whose tits were almost spilling out, but by then Tala was already leaving. Chris left the club and finally called after her out on the curb. She stopped and talked to her girls who pushed her towards him. He said, ‘Sorry ‘bout that. Ray’s some of my old crowd.’ ‘He’s not, like, dangerous, is he?’ she asked, her eyes wide. He wanted to touch her so bad he’d have sworn Ray was a fucking angel if he’d known that would get her to stay. ‘They’re gone,’ was all he said. She looked less nervous, but still nervous. He had to get her to stay with him, so he said, ‘Look. I’d like to see you. How ‘bout you pick a place and I’ll see you there.’ She looked confused. ‘See me? When?’ ‘Now. If you got time.’ She looked back at her girls who were giggling and waving her to stay. ‘Well…’ ‘Pick a place. Any place.’ ‘Not mine,’ she said, looking nervous again. ‘Ok.’ ‘And not yours either.’ ‘Ok.’ ‘I’d say a hotel, but…’ ‘But what?’ ‘I’m not a prostitute,’ she said, and he knew, just the way she said it, he knew this one had brains. He didn’t know why that just made everything ten times better. Brains usually meant trouble, but he wouldn’t mind trouble from her. ‘Never thought you were,’ he said. ‘Know one?’ he added. ‘One?’ ‘Hotel? Know one we could go to?’ ‘Um… yeah. I mean… yeah, I do.’ ‘Ok.’

So they went, taking a cab, she wouldn’t get into his car. They reached the place, he’d never seen it before, though he knew the street. They went in and she smiled at the girl up front who said ‘Tala! Hey, darling!’ She smiled and they whispered and finally she had a card and they went up to the room. There was a mini bar, she said they could use it, so he mixed a Jack with coke, and they were on the couch and she looked at him with, ‘So. What next?’ He showed her. She loved it. She loved it so much she gave him her number the next mornin’.

October 30, 2014

a simple life

The cabin was in the middle of nowhere out in the plains. It took twenty minutes to get to the main street with the grocers and the bar. The cabin had everything though, water and electricity, and enough firewood if it got cold at night. Bobby made sure there was enough.

Bobby Sachs was the mechanic in Twain. You needed your car fixed you got it to Sachs. He knew everything about cars, old, new, sold twice, three times, he knew exactly what you needed. How, nobody knew, he just did. He was a good man, tall, very broad, always tanned. He was rarely in anything else than jeans and a soiled shirt, work gloves hanging out of his back pocket, his workboats sprinkled with motor oil. He was the quiet type, didn’t talk much, but was a good for a drink and a game of pool in the bar. Bobby Sachs was liked by everyone in Twain, he was a good man, solid. And he took care of Christiana, everyone called her Christy though.

Christy was… she was a sweet girl, but not very bright. When she went shopping at the grocers, she had a list of things they needed, written out by Bobby, coz Christy couldn’t remember much. Pretty face, but brain like a sieve, everyone said. And it was good Bobby Sachs did the decent thing and married her. She’d been going out with Bobby Sachs’ cousin, Hank Royce, but Hank was no good. Beat her up bad sometimes, especially when he was drunk, but there was no getting Christy away from Hank, he was all she had save her Gran, and her Gran was ancient. Nobody really knew about Christy’s dad, and her Moma one day up and left without so much as a word or goodbye. Christy was ten then, and everybody in Twain agreed that’s when she got a bit strange. She’d loved her Moma like only a kid could, but Christy’s Moma was a bitch, everyone was happy to see her go. Nobody said that to Christy’s face though, coz Christy was an angel. Not very bright, but so sweet you didn’t want no harm to come her way. You just couldn’t get her away from that good-for-nothin’ drunk she was with.

Then Hank Royce got himself killed in a car crash down at the Old River, and it was Bobby Sachs who dragged the wreck to the yard. As the story went, he came by Christy’s to give her the money for the scraps, saw how bad she was and just took her home to get her cleaned up and fed. She never left after, and at one point they went to the preacher and Bobby put his Moma’s ring on Christy’s finger. Now Christy was taken care of and the whole of Twain was relieved. Christy wasn’t an angel for nothin’, she had a good man for a husband, a man she obviously adored, she wouldn’t let anyone talk bad about Bobby. grasses Everyone was happy for her, she was a good girl with a good man, and Bobby Sachs was the kind of man you wanted to see with a good wife. Everyone was happy to see them walking into the bar for the dance on Saturday nights, or down to the fair when it came to Crosby further down the highway, coz Bobby Sachs took care of his wife. He even took her out when she wanted to have a good time.

October 24, 2014May 17, 2020

saying hi

Not PG Rated

I just wanted to drop by, say Hi, see how she’s doing. Jermaine and Vaughn were waiting in a bar downtown, and her place was on the way. I walked in with the take-away guy, she looked pretty shocked to see me. She didn’t have enough money on her for her order, she’d confused the bills, so I paid. Her face got seriously red then, like, cherry. That guy she’s dating must be totally whipped by now.

She let me in though, offered a beer so I thought hell, why not, my boys can wait. We even shared her dinner, though she said it was mine coz I’d paid. I told her to stop worrying about that, and we had a good time just talking. Kind o’ got outta hand though. It’s the way she looks at you, with those huge eyes, they’re this deep blue, like she’s begging you to get her clothes off nice and fuck her real slow, y’know, real good, and that’s kind o’ what happened. She looked real bad after, guilty, so I pulled her close, y’know, tryin’ to comfort her and tell her it’s ok, happens to everyone at some point, and that kind o’ got outta hand as well. She was crying afterwards, said she was a horrible person, and how could she ever look Sean in the eye again, over and over, she just wouldn’t stop.

So, I tried to calm her down, told her this had nothing to do with him, it was her life, not his. She stared at me like I’d just shot someone, so I told her the truth, it would do her no good to start talkin’, coz her guy’d never understand. She was still crying, sayin’ how she’d cheated on him and how could anything ever work after that, so I said, she didn’t cheat on him, she just had sex with someone else. She stared at me again, that straight stare like I’d just said plain murder the guy right there. As I said, a bit innocent sometimes, but it’s part of her and it’s kind o’ cute. So I went all out and said, ‘Look, you don’t know what Sean does when you’re not around, so don’t bother him with your stuff.’ She got a bit angry there, how I could even think that Sean would ever and all that, and all I said, ‘He’s a guy Amanda, and guys are guys most of the time.’

That’s when she went all quiet and said, ‘So, this was just a fuck?’ I didn’t know what to say. I mean, sayin’ Yeah would’ve made her cry all over again, and I didn’t wanna say No neither, so I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ which made it worse, coz she started cryin’ and got angry at the same time, which is a helluva combo. She can get real loud. Took me almost an hour to calm her down, and we kind o’ ended up doin’ it again, coz I’d been tellin’ her that she’s beautiful and everything, which is true, she’s awesome, but she took it all wrong of course, but what’s a guy to do? It’s the way she looks at you and if you know how it is to feel her all hot and tight and just so good, it’s hard to say no, y’know? Real hard. So hard, Vaughn had to call me up so that I could get my ass outta there. Man, I really fucked that up. I really just wanted to drop by and see how she’s doin’, y’know, nothin’ special. Next time, I’ll just cut past that street. If it gets outta hand like that again, she’ll probably start screamin’ the house down. Fuck, I just wanted to say Hi. Now, I’ll probably have to drop the diner and their coffee’s the best this side o’ town.

October 20, 2014May 16, 2020

in the field 2

The doors opened, two guests stepped out and they stepped in. In the compartment there was silence and easy lounge music. Alexis didn’t bother to look at her new roommate. All she could think of was her shower. In less than a minute they were at her door, Alexis opened it and dropped everything the moment she walked in. Finally. the sea the sea After booting up her office laptop, she finally found the time to turn and give Mr Russell a good look. Tall, dark and handsome indeed. They probably saw him and coined the phrase. About thirty, maybe a bit older. And he looked as much in need of a shower as she did. It really was way too humid.

‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather shower first,’ Alexis said, ‘unless you have a pressing need,’ she added, not without a little irony. With looks like that she felt he couldn’t be all that touchy, and she’d been looking forward to that shower since three.
‘No, go ahead,’ he said with that accent Alexis hadn’t heard in a long time.

And as always when she heard it, it softened something inside, not much, but enough to notice. Just then her phone beeped loud, twice. Alexis checked, she had a message. It read that Marc, her colleague back home, had sent her the graphs she asked for. He wanted to know if she got them, the servers had crashed again after they uploaded the new program. Now he wasn’t sure if anything reached anyone.

‘On a second thought, why don’t you go first,’ Alexis said turning back to her computer.
‘Are you sure?’ Mr Russell asked, sounding too polite, never mind the accent.

Ah, he rather wished he didn’t owe her this. Well, she’d rather have had her rooms to herself too, but Claire could look like a lost kitten if she wanted to, it was only one night, and so far Mr Russell didn’t look like a psychopath. Added to that she was dead tired. She had no time to argue.

‘I have to check this, so go ahead,’ Alexis said while sitting down at her laptop. She registered shifting and moving behind her, entered the password and heard how Mr Russell walked past her to the bathroom, the door closing with a quiet click. Alexis opened her email and saw that she had received one from Marc, except that it was void of graphs. She called and told him, Marc said he knew, he wanted to make sure she actually got his mails first, and promptly sent her the actual material. They small talked some more, and Alexis mentioned the charity-work she was currently doing for the hotel. With the shower running on the other side of the bathroom door, she felt safe to vent a little.

‘Russell?’ Marc asked. ‘You don’t mean Russell from Trinity?’
‘Trinity? In Dublin?’
‘No, the one in Beijing,’ Marc snorted. ‘Of course in Dublin.’
‘I’m tired, Marc, can’t expect me to – wait, you mean the Russell from Trinity who wrote about that funeral pyre or what it was they found in Ecuador last year?’
‘Yeah, he was part of the group,’ Marc said, the usual click-clack of his fast-typing fingers still audible over the phone. ‘Yeah, here, Kieran Russell, Trinity College, currently working on the Indigenous Spirit Rituals of Polynesia. I knew I heard that name somewhere.’
‘Spirit Rituals?’
‘Yeah, he’s got this whole thing on spiritualism and how indigenous peoples generally have a link to a non-visible Entity. You know, Karlson’s stuff, life after death, spirits and everything. I think he wrote something on zombie myths, actually. Could be wrong though.’
‘Ok. How long has he been on it? Do you know?’
‘Nope. But…’ more click-clacking from the keyboard, ‘yeah, looks like he’s trying to trace back the roots like Luchovsky -’
‘But Luchovsky’s mad -’
‘Yeah,’ Marc chuckled. ‘Got thrown out of the Vatican last month -’
‘Again? I thought he was banned for life after the crypt?’
‘Nah, cousin’s a cardinal or something. Anyway – this guy’s slant is different.’
‘How so?’
‘Says here, Russell’s about how good old opium for the people’s come to be such big business to day. Lots of heathen cult incorporation, shrines turned to churches, something on the Mars cult – right up Luchovsky’s alley – ’
‘Not much of a Catholic then.’
‘Couldn’t say,’ Marc said, typing on, popping gum. ‘He’s been working with some big names actually – he’s part of that Mexico City network with the pyramid – oh, and he’s worked with our good friend George.’
‘Kaluo?’
‘Yep.’
‘Makes sense,’ Alexis said, hearing the shower pour on. If he could work with George he had to be good. ‘So, what does he look like, exactly?’ Alexis asked, wanting to be sure.
‘Here, check yourself,’ Marc said.

Seconds later, Alexis had a new email, with a link she clicked on. The page popped up showing pictures of a group of faculty, and in the middle of it a familiar face. So it was him, Kieran Russell. Not bad. Not bad at all. Well, at least now she knew who he was.

‘Is it him?’ Marc asked on the other end.
‘Looks like.’
‘Bit good-lookin’ don’t you think?’ Marco mused.
‘Not everyone has to look like Milo,’ Alexis said, which made Marc chuckle again.

Their boss looked like a slim version of Kojak, without the lollipops, and the looks for that matter. Still, Prof. Milos Zetakis was a very able boss and both Alexis and Marc enjoyed working for him. Alexis would have hardly stayed at the department if she hadn’t, and Marc wasn’t someone to tolerate dictatorships.

‘Ok, Marco,’ Alexis sighed, covering a yawn.
‘Polo,’ Marc said on automatic, making Alexis smile.

It was their silly game. Whoever forgot to say Polo had to pay the next round of drinks, never mind if they were on opposite ends of the planet.

‘I think I should stop before my bill eats up my phone,’ Alexis yawned again. Lord, she was tired. Where was the food? ‘I’ll send you everything by, say, tomorrow?’
‘Take your time. Milo won’t be in until day after.’
‘Oh, sweet. Great. God, I’m tired. Sorry, Marc, but I really should go.’
‘Sure. Take your time.’

And Marc was gone. Alexis turned back to her screen. Kieran Russell from Trinity. And he signed in as Mr Russell. Alexis liked that. Most rode on the wave of prestige, and thought writing a treatise automatically put you in a different category of human. Alexis would have preferred Ms Jordan as well, but since Mr Kelly found out what she was doing it was Dr Jordan the moment she walked into the lodge.

Alexis closed the url Marc sent her, opened the files in her mail, set up her field laptop and connected the two computers to process the data she gathered so far. Soon she would have the entire complex in 3D. The past weeks were really only taking measurements and photographs so that she had something solid to work with when she returned home. Then she could finally work on understanding what it was she and Toni had dug up there, Toni who did the wise thing and sped home to his wife and kids once the clouds started showing. pier dark What did they find there, though? An old settlement? A temple? Or something nobody knew about? It was a cooperation with Hawaii State, Toni working on the Islands and Alexis back home, using the gift of the gods named internet to communicate seamlessly. Even so, a few weeks field work were always necessary for Alexis to not lose touch, and now she was on her third week. She had two more to go, and then it would be back to rainy San Francisco again, not that the islands were much better right now anyway, God she was hungry. Really, where was that food?

October 19, 2014May 16, 2020

midnight menu

Not PG rated

She didn’t talk very much, but she always said thank you with a smile. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, after the late-night shift, he would go to the diner, sit at the counter and order the Midnight Menu that was made almost entirely out of fat and cholesterol. It tasted heavenly.

Oliver, or Oil as his colleagues called him – it was that one lunch break where he listed reasons why extra virgin olive oil was healthy that did it. He couldn’t help it, it was the kind of trivia he knew. So, he would walk into the diner at sometime past 2 a.m., sit down at the red-leather stool and start off with a coffee to wake him up, then continue with some nuts or crackers in the small dish someone always set before him, and finally go for the Midnight Menu, greasy and heavy in his stomach, the perfect thing to carry him home and send him to sleep the moment he undressed and hit the pillows.

Sometimes he didn’t undress at all. It all got into a muddle once he passed his door. Somnolence thickened his fatigue halfway up the five floors, and by the time he opened the door, he was sleep-walking. Every now and then he woke up in his shirt and tie, his pants unzipped. He somehow always remembered to remove his shoes, the fruits of rigorous childhood training where one step into the house with muddy shoes was accompanied with the siren-like shriek from his mother. And he always had muddy shoes. Since then it had become almost a reflex to remove his shoes the moment he closed the door. The rest, however… Oliver couldn’t say how often he’d woken up drooling on his jacket, but only ever on Wednesday and Friday mornings, after the late-night shift and endless jokes about olive oil.

There was no reason why he went to the diner so religiously. It had nothing to do with the interior, which looked like a bad copy of a 50s’ family eatery. It wasn’t the music which was always this side of mediocre, let alone the clientele that looked just as half-dead as he usually felt. It was the food at first, greasy and delicious and so unhealthy he ate up with glee. And when she suddenly turned up, he had another reason as well. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she had a nice face, the kind you could watch and watch and watch and not get tired, unless you were drifting off into the land of nowhere like he often was. She moved gracefully, like a dancer, never talked louder than necessary and always said thank you with a smile. He liked her, though all the conversation they had was a hello and goodbye, except his usual order and how she jotted everything down as if she’d heard it for the first time.

He at first thought she was a little slow. He never changed his order, so why all this writing? Then he saw her reading that French woman they’d had in school and changed his mind. He got a little cautious too. She was working the night shift at a slightly seedy dig, looking prim and proper like a neatly trimmed garden, without any sign of unease. The moment he realized this, Oliver got curious. Very quietly, over the space of weeks of Tuesday and Thursday late-night shifts he started wanting to know who she was, why she read that French book on the graveyard shift, and what the rest of her life looked like. She had to have something of a rest of her life. He had a rest of his life, though it didn’t amount to much. If he wasn’t sleeping he was working, if he wasn’t working he was sleeping. Weekends just drifted by, and there was Terry who insisted on drinks on Friday night, usually spent listening to Terry talk about his boring life. He’d had a girl once, ages ago. Pretty thing, bright, with plans for her life that did not entail the likes of him. Oliver didn’t mind. Thinking about her and them and us and everything else had proven to be unnecessarily complicated, he kept on messing up the one steady thing in his life, his job. So he wasn’t too shocked when she called it quits. He hadn’t seriously seen a woman in… years.

There was Stella from down the hall though. He’d found her crying on the stairs one day, crying so hard she could hardly move, so he helped her up, opened her door for her and made her some chamomile tea, why did women always have camomile tea? Then he listened to how she walked in on her boyfriend fucking another woman, got her box of Kleenex for her and hugged her awkwardly across the corner of her kitchen counter. He tucked her into bed fully dressed, except her shoes of course, slipped a tacky white teddy into the crook of her arm, a gift from the man she just fled from. Oliver made sure she was ok, Stella told him twice she was all right, so he left.

A week later, some drab Sunday night, the doorbell rang. Oliver opened it and saw Stella standing there with a bottle of wine, saying she wanted to say thank you. They drank the wine in his kitchen and fucked on his couch, and since then it was kind of an arrangement that he turned up at her place on Sunday evening with a bottle of wine. They rarely drank any of it because Stella was a riot in bed. She knew some surprising things, and liked talking about the men she met while they were fucking. Oliver got to know about a lot of people this way, it was way better than the Sunday night special on TV.

That was his life really, the late-night shift on Tuesday and Thursday, a few drinks with Terry on Friday, maybe a trip to the gym on Saturday, and sex with Stella from down the hall on Sunday evening. It was easy, there were no complications, and Oliver lived rather contentedly this way. He didn’t want anything to change really, though sometimes he did dream of faraway places where he would live a different life altogether, where he might have something close to ambition, but those were just dreams anyway.