Triptych

Roy flipped on the lights and hesitated a moment by the door. He turned to face the young woman behind the counter. “Ready for your first day at work, baby girl?” he asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, Grampa.” Robyn tugged at the hem of the ill-fitting red smock.

Roy unlocked the doors to his convenience store and greeted the first customers of the day. Martie, one of his regulars, was first through the door. He was followed by a kid Roy didn’t know. He looked to be a mechanic by the way he was dressed — black work boots, navy blue pants, and a striped shirt with his name “Jimmy” sewn over the left pocket.

Roy watched Robyn ring up the sale of coffee and a chocolate donut to Martie. She tilted her head a bit to the left and twisted her mouth to the right as she calculated the change — Roy insisted that she not simply rely on the register to do the math. In those gestures he saw his daughter, Robyn’s mother. How funny, he thought, the traits that pass from one generation to the next.

“Thank you, sir. Have a good day,” Robyn told Martie. Then, “Hi, Jimmy. Will that be all?” as he stepped up with a bottle of Coke and a Snickers bar. Roy couldn’t hear the boy’s response, but noticed a slight blush in his granddaughter’s face. He moved closer and she said, “Robyn.” Then she counted out his change and finished with, “Thanks. Y’all come back.”

Martie was at the door of Roy’s Convenience five minutes before opening time. It was part of his morning ritual to get coffee and a donut on his way to work. Some punk in work clothes was at the corner smoking a cigarette.

When the door opened he said hi to Roy. He started toward the coffee pot and his eye was immediately drawn to a beautiful girl behind the counter. This was not a normal part of his routine. He stirred two creamers into his coffee and pulled a chocolate donut from the display case.

The shapeless smock couldn’t hide the girl’s curves and when she absent-mindedly pulled at its hem they stood out in bold relief. Her long straight hair spilled across her shoulders and flared over her breast when she tilted her head. She made a funny face when she counted out his change. He caught a glimpse of the lacy edge of her bra as he accepted the coins. He imagined that her firm body would defy gravity even without the garments.

“Thank you, sir. Have a good day,” she said. Did she emphasize the “sir” to remind him of the difference in their ages? He was easily old enough to be her father. “Still young enough to look, though,” he thought to himself as he sipped his coffee and pushed his way out the door.

Jimmy took one last drag of his cigarette and tossed the butt into the storm drain. The convenience store reminded him of the one he had almost robbed the week before. He didn’t know what had stopped him that night, but he knew that had he gone through with it he wouldn’t be here this morning. He had a new job helping out at Tennison’s Garage.

The old guy at the door seemed to eye him suspiciously. It made him nervous. He grabbed a 2-liter of Coke and a king-size candy bar without thinking about the fact that sugar and caffeine were not really what he needed this morning. But he found himself at the counter looking at the prettiest girl he had ever seen and he would have felt stupid taking his selections back for healthier choices.

“Hi, Jimmy. Will that be all?” He was stunned for a moment till he realized she had read his name off his work shirt. “You gonna tell me your name?” he asked softly. He felt more than saw the old man moving closer. Was that a smirk on the girl’s face or just a moment of concentration? Her cheeks appeared a shade darker.

“Robyn,” she said handing him his change. “Thanks. Y’all come back.” It was Jimmy’s turn to blush. And he knew. He would be back.

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Sleep the Night

Please note: This post includes sexual and violent content which some readers may find disturbing. This started as a longer piece that I edited down to under 1000 words. I think the feel of it still comes through. As always, you can let me know in the comments whether it works for you.

We grew up in a two-bedroom apartment so my sister Nikki and I shared a room. We even shared the same bed until I was twelve and she was ten. Then Mom started throwing a fit every day. “It just ain’t right. It ain’t healthy,” she spat at Dad. We couldn’t afford a bigger place and Dad wasn’t about to give up drinking beer and watching TV till all hours so I could sleep in the living room. Instead, he found an old pair of twin beds and put them on opposite sides of our room.

Nikki and I never understood what the big deal was. We couldn’t remember a time when we hadn’t curled up together to sleep and it made no sense to us that we suddenly needed to stop. And we didn’t really. Our parents would check that we were in our own beds but in the middle of the night Nikki would climb in with me. Amazingly, one of us would always hear when my parents were getting up so she was back in her bed again every morning.

Nikki lost her virginity when she was fourteen. I know because I was there. The boy’s name was Danny. He climbed in through the window to be with her. I could tell he was surprised that I was in the room, but when she took him by the hand and pulled him onto her bed he found it easy enough to ignore me. I just put my head under my pillow until they were done. When he left I asked if she was okay. She said yes and then asked if it was okay for her to sleep next to me for a while. It was the only time she ever asked. She kept her face turned away from me and I think she was crying a little bit. “I’ll always take care of you,” I told her.

Danny never said anything about us sharing a room, but he told anyone who would listen that he had slept with Nikki. He never came back. It was a couple months before Nikki invited another boy through the window. That one looked at me, shook his head and left right away. He did tell people about us sharing a room, but no one ever said anything to my face. There were lots of snickers and whistles behind our backs though. Then began a pretty steady stream of boys. Some boys she would see only once. Some she would continue to see for a few weeks. I never asked whether it was her choice or theirs when she moved on to the next.

The one I remember best from that time was Scott. The first time he snuck in he stared at me for a full minute and I thought he was going to bolt. It was pretty common knowledge around school by then that Nikki and I shared a room. Maybe he just didn’t believe it until he saw it for himself. Anyway, every time after that he brought his little sister Dawn with him. She was almost the same age as Nikki. I was nervous as hell the first couple times she got in bed with me. She would tongue kiss me and let me put my hands all over her before we actually did it. And that’s how I lost my virginity, screwing the little sister of the guy that was screwing my little sister. She seemed to be really into it, but when Scott stopped showing up so did Dawn.

Nikki started seeing Matt when she was sixteen. For the first time, she started sneaking out at night to be with him instead of him always coming into our room. I would never sleep a wink until she was back home. Sometimes she would stay in her own bed all night after being with him. I hated everything about him, but Nikki said he was really very sweet. I couldn’t see it. He was twenty-two years old, a two-bit hustler and small time drug dealer. When Nikki got pregnant she moved in with him. I finally had a room to myself but I couldn’t sleep the night all alone. I’d pace in tiny circles in the space between our beds until I finally dropped from exhaustion.

I still saw Nikki almost every day and she seemed happy enough. And then one day I saw bruises on her arm. She said she just bumped into a door, but it sure as hell looked to me like someone had grabbed her hard. The next week her left hand was all swollen and wrapped in a bandage. The week after that she was limping, but still she told me it was just an accident and not to worry. When I saw her with a black eye I wasn’t buying her bullshit any more. I went up to her place and found Matt sitting there with a beer in his hand. For a second I thought it was our Dad; he had the same kind of alcohol-glazed look in his eyes and a know-it-all smirk on his face. I had a baseball bat and the element of surprise.

It turned out to be pretty easy for everyone to believe his death was due to a drug deal gone bad. Mostly because no one gave a shit that he was dead anyway. Nikki and I alibied each other at a bar a couple miles away. Now we share an apartment. We’re fixing up the second bedroom as a nursery. Sometimes I put my hand on her belly and tell her and the baby, “I’ll always take care of you.” Nikki nestles under my arm with her head on my shoulder and once again I can finally sleep the night.

Germ of an Idea

In honor of all those teachers and students returning to classrooms this fall here is an update of a story I published on another site a couple years ago.

I’m wondering what it would be like if we saw our teachers more like we see our doctors… young children would receive some basic instruction in numbers and letters like inoculations. Beyond that families [if they can afford it] would choose an education-care provider with whom they schedule regular check-ups. That provider may prescribe any number of lessons or refer patients to specialists. There would be emergency rooms and critical-care facilities when an individual becomes acutely aware of an educational shortcoming and they would receive intensive remediation. Best of all [really!], employers would routinely provide ignorance insurance [Blue Cross/Blue Shield might develop a Yellow Pencil/Red Pen division] to underwrite the cost of continuing education.

Johnny arrives fifteen minutes early for his appointment. He fills out [well, mostly fills out and most of that illegibly] three pages of forms and then sits in the waiting room. Thirty minutes later he is ushered into an examination room where he is given a pop quiz by an EdTech [Educational Technician].

“You have ten minutes,” says the EdTech, as she writes the time, date, and her name [let's say... Ms. Amy] in neat, block letters on a dry-erase board in front of Johnny.

“Miss,” Johnny raises his hand, “I don’t have a pencil.”

Ms. Amy hands Johnny a sharp #2 pencil [for which he will be billed $5.00] and with a sigh and slight shake of her head makes a note on his chart [his PERMANENT record...].

Johnny bends over the quiz paper and answers most of the questions [again, mostly illegibly] and embellishes the page with stray doodles. At ten minutes [timed to the second, of course] Amy reaches for the paper. “Time’s up!”

“Miss, do you count off for spelling?”

“Only when it’s wrong. The teacher will be with you shortly.” Amy leaves, placing Johnny’s chart and quiz in a plastic bin on the wall.

Johnny stares blankly at the wall and chews idly on the pencil. A few minutes later the teacher [let's call her Dr. Brennan] enters.

“Good morning, Johnny! Please sit up straight.”

“Good morning, Dr. Brennan.”

She flips quickly through his chart, frowning at the pop quiz results and stealing a side-long glance at the pencil wedged again in his teeth. Johnny notices and guiltily drops the pencil to his lap.

“It’s not time for your regular check-up, Johnny. What’s up?”

“It’s the maths.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“It’s just all of it. I was looking at my bank statement last week…”

Problem with balance, Dr. Brennan notes in his chart.

“…and I was trying to subtract all the checks I wrote…”

Doesn’t know the difference.

“…and I just got all confused…”

Thank God he’s not multiplying — oops, that’s for another visit!

Dr. Brennan flips back a few pages in the chart. “I see we’ve treated you for this before.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I gave you three sample problems and a workbook?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you finish them?”

“Well, mostly. But then I had to work overtime for a few days and my car broke down and I slept late and my Mom didn’t wake me up and –”

Dr. Brennan holds up a hand. “I get the picture. We can repeat the treatment, but it won’t do any good if you don’t complete it. I hesitate to send you to a specialist… since it wasn’t a failure of the treatment but your failure to follow instructions it falls under the pre-existing conditions exemption clause and your insurance won’t cover it.”

“How much will it cost?”

Test for comprehension of irony during follow-up she noted… “A private tutor can easily run $300 an hour; group sessions can be arranged for as little as $100 an hour, but there might be as many as six people in the group.”

“Six people at a time! How can one tutor help six people at a time?”

“Well, obviously you’ll get less individual attention, but they’ve been very successful even with severe cases. They are highly-trained professionals, after all”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t afford either of those, especially if insurance isn’t going to cover it.”

There may be hope for you after all….

“Can I have another workbook?”

“Do you mean, ‘May I have another workbook, please?’”

“Yes, ma’am. May I have another workbook, please?”

“Promise me you’ll finish it and schedule a follow-up appointment in… let’s say two weeks.”

“I promise.”

“Okay, Johnny. Ms. Amy will be back in just a moment. She will give you the workbook and schedule your follow-up. And here…” she holds out a jar of candy.

“A lollipop. Thanks, Dr. Brennan!”

You can call it that. I call it a sucker…. “Bye, Johnny. See you in two weeks.”

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Flash in the Pan now on B&N

My e-chap Flash in the Pan is now available as a free download on the Barnes and Noble website. A collection of micro-fiction and flash fiction with a food-related theme. From a screaming salad to other-worldly sweets, from humor to mystery, this is a plateful of tasty tidbits.

I expect it to be available also on Sony and Kobo in the next week or so. Release dates for Amazon and Apple are TBA. Aspiring writers should check out Smashwords.

Flash in the Pan cover

Cover photo by Jurvetson (flickr)

Nameless

Warning: This post contains [im]mature subject matter.

She has a name, of course. It’s just that I have never been able to pronounce it. I was the alien in her world. At first she seemed irritated that I could never say it correctly. But that quickly turned to amusement at my continued attempts to wrap my tongue around the unfamiliar sounds. Eventually she suggested a more familiar, if generic, term of endearment. She also offered more… sensuous delights for me to wrap my tongue around — the multi-colored stripes on her skin, her five breasts each with three nipples, and her tentacles.

Being from different planets, our anatomies did not permit our coupling to be consummated; it really amounted to little more than mutual masturbation. She nearly strangled me when I told her she gave the best tentacle-job I’ve ever had. Lucky for me, our senses of humor were more compatible than our bodies. Still, we spent uncounted hours with our respective appendages wrapped around each other. The most glorious hours of my life. It’s a wonder I ever got any work done.

When I told her one day that a colleague had suggested that she was in fact trying to keep me from my work she screeched and bared her fangs at me. How is it that I never even knew she had fangs? I reached out to her and promptly had my hand slapped away. You have never been slapped until you’ve been slapped with a tentacle. Stings like you would not believe. She said I was just looking for an excuse to end our affair. And then she was gone. Refused to see me or speak to me. Is it ironic that she left me because she thought I wanted to leave her? I don’t know. We don’t get irony on my planet.

Maybe my buddy was right that she was trying to keep me from my work. Everyone on my team had been propositioned by one or more of our hosts. None of them succumbed the way I did. And all of them were ahead of schedule. With massive amounts of free time suddenly on my hands and no desire to venture outside my duty station I threw myself into my work. And finished first on my team, thank you very much.

So now I’m bound for home. I still can’t pronounce her name and there’s a bitter aftertaste when I try. As I prepare to enter stasis though, she’s all I can think about. Was she just trying to interfere with my work? Did I mean nothing to her? I’ll never know. I only know these words keep echoing in my brain with the only name I ever called her, “I miss you, Baby.”

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Bedtime Story

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Note: My site was off-line for a few days shortly after I posted this and then I was on hiatus for a few weeks. Since it wasn’t available during the prime reading period, I’m giving it a second chance.

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“Come on, little man. Time for bed.” The man scooped up his son and began carrying him to the bedroom.

“First a story though, right Daddy?”

“Of course, buddy. Always time for one story before we go to sleep.”

“Nothing scary this time,” his mother called after them. “You always give him nightmares with those silly things.”

“Right,” the dad agreed. “Nothing scary.”

A few minutes later teeth had been brushed and prayers fervently offered up to heaven. The boy was firmly tucked under the covers. “What would you like to hear a story about?” asked his dad.

“Dragons!”

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want you to be scared. When you wake up screaming, that scares your Mommy.”

“Please, Daddy. I won’t get scared. I promise.”

“Dragons, huh?”

“Dragons. Yes, please.”

And so in a low voice his father began:

A dragon can spot you in a crowd. The sick, the lame, the young, the old, the slow, the wounded (most of all, the wounded) — all are easy prey and fair game. Backed against a wall, you face the dragon. The dragon casts a furtive glance and then a spell, of sorts. You stare, mesmerized, into the dragon’s eyes. Eyes like fire.

The claws wrap around your throat. “I want your heart,” the dragon whispers. “I want your heart.”

“Take it,” you say.

Another claw runs down your chest, laying you open. “Does this hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I stop?”

“No. Give me the pain and take away my heart. The pain is mine. The heart is yours.”

“This heart.” The claws reach in and pull it, still beating, from your chest. “This heart is mine.”

“YES!”

“And when I no longer want it?”

“Still, it is yours. Do with it what you will.”

“What use is your heart to me?”

“I don’t know. You said you wanted it.”

“To do with as I choose?”

“Yes.”

“And if I choose to throw it away?”

“Then throw it away.”

“The pain is yours?”

“Yes.”

“And what use is your pain to you?”

“When I feel pain, I know I am not dead yet.”

The dragon drops your heart to the ground. Your heart shudders and quivers. Inexplicably, it still beats. You can see it, but you cannot feel it. The dragon lets go of your throat. You fall, heartless. But not quite dead. Not painless.

The dragon makes a noise that she thinks is laughter and then flies away.

“Why, Daddy? Why does the dragon do that?”

“Because dragons have no heart and they don’t want anyone else to have one either.”

Just then, the mother calls to them, “Okay, boys. Lights out. No more wasting time.”

The father kisses his son. “Coming, dear,” he calls back as he exits the room.

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Flash in the Pan

While on my blogging hiatus I put together a little e-book of food-related flash fiction. Flash in the Pan is now available on Smashwords. I did this as a learning experience. Page layout is always a challenge and formatting for an e-book has its own rules. [Smashwords provides a thorough style guide, but still....]

I don’t currently own a dedicated e-reader, but I have an i-Pod Touch with the Kindle and Stanza reader apps. The small screen is much easier to read than I expected, but I’ve only read short works on it. I don’t think I would enjoy a novel reduced to bite-sized pieces. I’m wondering how many of you have an e-reader and which one you have? What do you like most about it? What features are lacking? Anyone have an i-Pad? How many of you read on another portable device like I do?

Feel free to download a copy of Flash in the Pan, because that’s the price: free. There’s a PDF version for those without an e-reader. And I will be very grateful on any feedback you can give me.

Flash in the Pan cover

Cover photo by Jurvetson (flickr)

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The Voyeur

Lord Capulet read the morning newspaper over his breakfast. The social pages held glowing accounts of his soiree from the night before. He turned his attention to the police blotter.

Juliet pushed the newspaper from her father’s hand. “Daddy, please don’t make me marry Paris. My god, he’s almost 30! If I have to marry that old man I’ll just die. I’ll positively diiiiiiiieeeeeeeee.”

Lord Capulet sighed and rolled his eyes. Teenage girls can be SO dramatic….

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While you’re here, why not take a few minutes to look at what I posted for National Poetry Month? You know, you’ll be a better person for it….

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Cy

I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting a classic. Hey, it’s not like that never happens, right? I hope you enjoy it. Or at least, you know, forgive me.

“Annie,” I whispered.

“Annie,” Chris called out.

And so I became the puppet master. I whispered and he spoke. My words became his words and his face, my face. I seduced fair Annie by proxy. By remote control as it were.

But the conquest, fairly won, was bittersweet. For where my words passed easily from my lips to his, Annie’s kisses would never pass to mine. Not so long as…

And so I invited my dear friend friend to walk with me some little way. I beseeched him step aside and leave me one chance to woo Annie on my own merits. Now that I knew my words had the power, I was emboldened.

He refused, as I knew he would. I knew because I would have refused in his place. And knowing, I had misfortune lying in wait. Two robbers fell upon him, one to steal his gold and one to steal his looks. It was a savage beating he endured. Disfiguring. For Annie might forgive his loss of words if he still were pretty. But how could she love this mis-shapen ape and his unintelligible grunts?

Leaving my friend battered and bleeding in the street I set off in quest of my love. And there, at the window, she took away my breath. “Annie,” I whispered. Then, remembering my resolve…

“Annie,” I called out.

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Family Ties

Here I present two scenes based on a single premise exploring how family members “take care” of each other. They are different because of the [forgive me] character of one of the characters. Both parts involve violent behavior that some readers will find disturbing.

Thicker:
David watched the young woman’s nicely-rounded body as she crossed the room. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on it. He stood near enough at the bar to hear what she ordered to drink. An appletini — he nearly laughed out loud. A few minutes later he ordered one too and slipped a roofie into it before sidling up to her.

“Here,” he held the drink out to her with his best boyish grin. Before she could reach for it — or refuse it, he wasn’t sure which way she would go — a bullet shattered the glass. A bloody rose bloomed on his chest and he dropped to his knees.

Everyone scattered, leaving David kneeling a few feet away from Tammy. She held the pistol firmly as if she were going to fire another shot. “I had to stop him,” she said to no one in particular. “He’s my brother.”

Thinner:
David straddled the young woman and ran his hands over her naked body. The roofie had kept her compliant for hours. She slowly regained lucidity and began to struggle. He was excited by the fear in her eyes. He pinned her arms above her head and leaned in close. “We’re just getting started,” he snarled.

The door opened and Tammy stood at the threshold. For several seconds she surveyed the scene. “Help me,” the young woman called to her weakly.

“I can’t,” Tammy replied. Closing the door, she whispered, “He’s my brother.”

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