The four stooges floundered through the night, sharing a bottle and aerosol can between them.
‘If he’s awake we’ll chin him,’ Bun said.
‘I don’t want to chin no one, especially no pensioner. Won’t your dad be pissed, Porky?’ Slop said.
‘Dad won’t find out. The old man’ll be asleep; we go in, find the bag and go back out. We get some gear along the way, then pay off Burnt Dave. Easy.’
‘Where’s he keeping the money?’ Nose said.
‘I don’t know, but I heard dad gave it to him in a rucksack,’ Porky said. ‘He don’t hear good and I took dad’s spare key, so we won’t wake him.’
The door opened slow and Porky scouted the place from the safety of the entrance. Darkness. Thoughts of Burnt Dave pushed him through. He caught his foot on something, the stairs, he thought. His equilibrium was off but he caught his balance on the bannister. He ushered the others through.
The driver climbed down off the honey truck and said his name was Edgar.
“Thanks for coming so quick,” Clarence said. “Figured it might take a while.”
“You got lucky,” said Edgar. “I do a run out this way every three, four weeks. This is the week.”
“How do you handle the smell?”
“You get used to it. Sewage is sewage. Some of them’s worse than others. Did you clear the top off the tank?”
“Naw, I didn’t know where it was.”
One Eye Press is looking for a few good novellas to fill out our 2015 schedule for our stand alone Singles series. Our 2014 catalog produced FEDERALES by Christopher Irvin, WHITE KNIGHT by Bracken MacLeod, and GOSPEL OF THE BULLET by Chris Leek. We are very proud of these first books and are eager to […]
The very definition of man was looking at me. Unfortunately I wasn’t in front of a mirror. It had been a long while since my peek, and I’d never looked as good as this guy. Shirtsleeves revealed a network of raised veins tight over thickly muscled arms. I’d put him mid-forties and there was no […]
Whenever Becki heard the faraway hum of the printer at N.V. Labs, she would bolt from her cubicle like a race horse leaving the gate. If anyone saw her, she’d feign looking for a particular print job even though she had not submitted one. She just liked skimming through the papers before their owners arrived and seeing what they consisted of. Sometimes, she would get lucky and find racy correspondence or completed complaint forms about fellow coworkers.
Tuesday, it was the watermark of “Private” that caught her attention first. She skipped to the body and started speed reading. While she didn’t understand all of it – and had to read it hastily lest the rightful owner show up at any second – it was clear that someone in the company wanted to fraudulently restate earnings so a handful could unload their stock. As the assistant to the assistant comptroller, there was no way she would allow such a scheme to transpire on her watch.
Lynch sips his coffee and pretends to read the newspaper. Three months out of prison and two months and twenty-eight days into another bad streak, he’s scrounged together five dollars and figures, fuck it, he deserves a latte luxury. Dinner will be a challenge, but you only live once and he’s heard the meals are better in the afterlife anyway.
He’s skimming through the real estate section—yeah, right—when he notices her. Silky black hair down to her ass, fake tits, eyes like a voodoo priestess. The dress is too long to be slutty but it hugs her curves as if it has to get in a good one before a guard comes over and taps the table with his baton. Lynch has lost his sense of smell—too many broken noses—but he knows in his spirit that she scents the air like a freshly cut lawn and well-tended bougainvillea.
The sun hung way up in a yellow sky, glaring off the skeletal remains of metal playground equipment where the last cracked flakes of paint, once vibrant green, blue, red, now sun bleached to staunch pastels, left more bare steel than paint. The A-frame of an old swing set stood empty where the chains and leather-strap seats had been pilfered years earlier, and the woman and the man beyond the missing swings, sat side-by-side on a concrete bench. Her skin had taken to the color of oatmeal and glistened with hot sickly sweat. Her black hair came down in ragged, damp tendrils around her small shoulders. The man, pressing the back of a hand to her head, spoke in a hush.
“Oye, are you still there? Hey. Can you hear me?”
June. An OK month. Not sweltering hot, but you know that’s coming.
And roses . . . For like a week, they spring up in neighbor’s bushes. Like that tight-assed bitch’s, who lives next to Scratch’s. Bitched to Lew ‘cos Snake picked one for Nina, the crack-whore.
“Can you believe that shit?” Lew switches on Scratch’s ceiling fans. “Over one fuckin’ rose?”
Behind the bar, you slice limes. “Getting territorial.” You’re the queen of two-dollar words.
“Four o’clock, on a Sunday. Should be layin’ in the sun, enjoyin’ retirement. But no, she’s worried about. . . .”
“’Scuse me?”
Worst part of waking up this morning was having no idea where I was. Or anything else. My glasses should’ve been on a nightstand. I should’ve woken up on my right side, one arm over the edge, almost falling over. No light in my room. I scrabbled on the nightstand through piles of change and receipts and my .22 to find my glasses, the light switch on the wall above. I should’ve woken up alone.
There was a girl beside me this morning. Maybe this was her place. Maybe I got lucky that night. She was kind of cute too. Naked, blonde, one hand curled under her pillow and the other clenching the sheet-the only blanket on this bed-to her fake-massive chest. Her mouth hung half open. Maybe she was trying to keep me from looking. I bet the rest of her was good too.
The window behind me let too much light in here. Blinds half drawn sent bars of sunlight and darkness across the place, over me and her and on the dirty floor to the bare cracked wall on the other side. No idea what time it was. Where the hell’s my watch.
EVIDENCE Case number: FL20-99493 Bag number: 9493-003 Type of offence: HOMICIDE Description of Evidence: Button-down shirt, medium. Blue. Location of evidence: Worn by victim. West parking lot G. Space 633/634. Victim: Unknown Suspect: Unknown Adam runs a hand over his brush cut and winks at his reflection. He tilts his head side to side, […]
In a low gear, I turned into the mile-long dirt road Saul called his driveway.
Foot easy on the accelerator. Suspension sharing every bump and pothole. Hunched over the steering wheel looking for light, any light, coming from the old farmhouse.
I was trying to keep my wheels out of the ruts; big deep things, filling up with rain. From a truck, probably. Or what you call an SUV.
Always lights on at Saul’s place, you see, assuming Saul was there. Council said it was what you call an eyesore. There was a petition. A village meeting. After he’d finished the renovations – did it all himself – he surrounded the place with big external lights. Like you see on your churches, your museums.
She wears a nametag—Susan. You want her to be more. To see the gray smudges on the bottom of your pants legs, to put a hand on your shoulder and say, “That snow bank sure seemed solid.” She should notice the gash across your left, index knuckle. Wince at how the wound has turned yellow and brown. “Sometimes we forget to aim the knife away from our bodies,” she should say. Beyond that, she should offer empathy over the alimony you can’t pay, the money you owe the IRS, the foreclosure. “An apartment might be more manageable, don’t you think?” The angle her head rests on her shoulders, the light bouncing off her eyes, the smile she greeted you with when the bell over the front door went ‘ding,’ these things dissolve layers of hatred gathering mold since your wife insinuated you’re a ‘mama’s boy.’ They cancel the sneers in college, the snubs from attractive sorority girls, the signs stuck to your back in high school (Kick Me!).Your father’s fist, once a ton, now evaporates with a chuckle you make as Susan drops a cliché on the counter—“Cold enough for you?” You don’t hear the formality of the situation. You don’t realize this relationship is over the moment you pay and walk out the door.
