One Eye Press is excited as we hit the 6 week window to to the release of our first western novella, GOSPEL OF THE BULLET by Chris Leek. As a tease, please enjoy the cover reveal with art by C D Regan. Chuck, as we know him, is a talented creator – designer, artist, writer […]
The girl was bored in the police station playroom—a room meant for smaller children, to provide a distraction, a return to normalcy, to get their minds off of why they were there in the first place.
“It breaks my heart to see her in there. She’s so serious.” Det. Finlay said, looking through the one-way glass at the girl staring with disinterest at the stuffed animals and coloring books. “We should have an iPad in the kids’ room. Something more age appropriate. She’s gotta be ten or eleven—too old for that baby stuff.”
“I hate Florida.” Mitch looks up at me, startled. “Crud, Billy! You almost made me crap my pants!” He frowns at me. “How long you been standing there?” Reaching across the bench, he casually picks up the orange that’s been sitting beside him for the past fifteen minutes. “Long enough,” I say. He shrugs. “So […]
The deriding stares and subtle but audible curses hadn’t started immediately, which was a welcome change, though she felt perverse comfort when they finally did. They must have been getting used to her. She’d made a habit of coming early, before most of them arrived, making a point to wear sensible but sexy outfits, tonight perhaps her best, skinny jeans, tank top and short coat to protect her from the breeze off the bay, but her most expensive and daring shoes. Mesh topped Louboutons, red soles screaming her contempt with every step, a gift from her mother she wanted to refuse but couldn’t overcome her consumerism to deny.
Jong Yu kissed her and for the last time she reveled in their disdain. She touched her red nail to the hard line of his chest and over the solid lumps of his stomach. His flesh rose. She’d miss this part more than anything, his unabashed arrogance in the face of his peers, his boldness tugging her the same way it had when they first met and she’d skip classes to lay with him for hours.
My younger brother dropped his bags at my feet, said, “I’ll be here a couple of weeks tops, Barney.” He brushed past, leaving his luggage.
“Sure.” My only reservation: Ely’s drug-dealing. I shrugged. Needed the rent money now I’d been fired .
He soon relegated me to the basement, taking residence, and court, in my bedroom. Does all kinds of deals in there. Doesn’t want me to see.
Sheila started as his customer, now she’s his accountant and lover. I hear their bedsprings most nights, lying right beneath them. Wonder how the bedsprings manage it. Glad they do. Don’t want them coming through the floorboards and smothering me with their horny sweat.
Two cops go into a liquor store. No joke.
A punk named Freeman checked his brain at the door. He never intended to hurt anyone the day he entered A&J Liquor Mart. His gun was plastic. Within seconds, the whacky cashier pulled his own gun, no toy, and fired at Freeman. His untrained hand missed badly. The slug came to rest in Officer Turlington’s junk. Family jewels splattered over the black and white tiles. Then the stupid jerk of a clerk fainted. Freeman cleaned out the till then walked over to the bloodied officer and took the cop’s gun.
The door marked Arthur P. Goldburger, Attorney at Law, clattered open. After a muffled cough, the door crashed shut again. “Come in, come in,” cried Arthur nervously behind endless rows of paper stacked on his desk. He swung his legs up like a child on a swing, then swiftly down to catapult his behind off […]
Patrick G. rode waves every sunrise and prowled Venice Beach most afternoons. A hardcore, twenty-year-old California surfer with no job and an attitude problem, Patrick didn’t haunt Venice to gaze at rolling Pacific swells or ogle tiny bikinis. He watched tourists, waiting to see where they hid their wallets before they took an ocean swim.
Patrick excused his petty thievery as part of the local sideshow. Dead center in a line of beach towns dotting the coast just west of Los Angeles, Venice brings to mind a loony carnival on the sand. On this particular Tuesday, gargantuan weightlifters held a seaside snatch and curl contest. A one-eyed tattoo artist on the boardwalk inked Batman and The Joker onto a local preacher’s shaved feet, Batman atop his right foot, The Joker atop his left.
Is there anything as dark, desolate and depressing as a summer resort in the off-season? That’s what I was thinking as I walked north on Ocean Boulevard, past the boarded up fried dough stands, T-shirt shops and cheap jewelry stores. In the moonlight I could see all the way to the Casino, not another soul out. Hard to believe in a few months you’d have to fight your way through the crowds on these cold, barren sidewalks.
It didn’t take long before I reached the street I wanted. The house itself was halfway down. It was a mess. One of the worst on the beach. A dump.
Carefully I walked up onto the porch. It wasn’t safe. The wooden door was unlocked. I went inside. The sweet smell of chemicals being drained thorough human bodies hit my nostrils. Mixed with body odor, it was a sickening aroma. Like cheap toilet water. I had smelled it before.
Sexy Sadie what have you done? I’m belly deep in the shag on a creepy crawl in search of talent in a north Dallas McMansion when there’s trouble. My head bumps into what I think is a chair leg but it’s the cold steel of a double barreled shotgun. I think: What would Charlie Manson […]
I’ll tell you man, it was those fucking eyes. It all went south for me when I first looked into those dammed blue eyes.
Hey…can I get a smoke?
Thanks
Yeah man, it was those Cocaine eyes of the Preacher’s daughter. She was hot man, don’t get me wrong, but one look into those baby blues and I was hooked. Hell…any boy would have been.
I ran into her one night on the Boulevard. You know Saturday night, just a bunch of us kids cruising up and down the strip. Drinking, smoking a little pot, harmless stuff really, I had an old Dart that my Grandma left to me when she died. Some buddies and I did some wrenching on it in auto shop and made it bad ass. It was a real fire breather that old car.
“Love or money?”
“What?” the lead guy said, keeping his gun pointed in my direction. The second gunman stepped in beside him and aimed at me too.
I lifted the newly dead body up a little more by the piano wire wrapped around his neck, it was difficult, Enrique had packed on a few pounds since hitting the big time, “You here for love or money?”
They seemed confused, I couldn’t decide if Enrique’s body guards being dumb was a good thing. I wished I wasn’t holding him, so I could go for my own gun, or even better, if I had pulled him a foot or so further from his desk when I choked him out he wouldn’t have kicked over the bottle of Scotch.
