eFiction Magazine Issue No. 021 by eFiction Press

EditorDoug Lance Managing EditorsEssie Holton ReadersRyan Dorill, Megan Schwark, Maggie Duncan, John Tormey

eFiction is a monthly fiction publication. The editors accept manuscripts online. To review our guidelines or submit a manuscript, please visit http://eFictionMag.com/ Submissions. Correspondence may be sent to Editor@eFictionMag.com. eFiction is available for free in PDF or EPUB format. Subscriptions for the Kindle edition are $1.99 / month and individual issues are $3.99. Visit us online at www. efictionmag.com. ISBN: 978-1-4659-3279-2 ASIN: B004UD88K2 Copyright ÂŠ 2011 eFiction Publishing

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December 2011

Contents Short Stories Cheaters Never Prosper SM Rosenberg

Ladybug Kingdom

Leila Gaskin

Object Permanence

Marcin Wrona

Garbage Man

Richard S. Freeland

The Knight’s Defence

Adam Byatt

Take the ‘A’ Train

Edward Raso

Serial Fiction The Dead Beat

Erica Linquist 93

& Aron Christensen The Bike Mechanic

Aaron M. Wilson

Contributors

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142

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Book Reviews Thrown Out: Stories from Exeter by Jennie Coughlin reviewed by Phyllis Anne Duncan 136 Catharsis by Jonathan Face reviewed by Essie Holton 140

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Cheaters Never Prosper SM Rosenberg

Daddy doesn’t like it when I call him a big, fat, lying cheaterface. Which is a problem because he is a big, fat, lying cheaterface. Yeah, I know that sounds unbelievably juvenile, but that’s how we do it in my family. Cuss words out, immature namecalling in. Not to mention yelling and screaming. We looove those. Melodrama to the max, because the more you yell about something, the smaller it looks in hindsight. Mom never got that, never got us. Daddy and me were just “irreconcilably different” from her, or at least that’s what it says on the divorce papers. But so what if my mom’s a mean stinky-head? I only have to see her on weekends. The rest of the time it’s just Daddy and me. At least I thought so. I thought basketball was just for us— those late-afternoon games of one-on-one on the backyard hoop. I thought rollerblading was just for us—those reckless races down the narrow streets. All those DVDs we watched together in the den—everybody else knew: movie theaters were for me and my friends, DVDs and Netflix were for me and my dad. And the dancing—that goofy, ridiculous rocking out we’d do on karaoke night with our imaginary band—that was for our living room, our stereo, our music, our invisible instruments, all ours. Obviously! Gosh, do I have to spell everything out for him?

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December 2011

“WHO IS SHE?” I bellow, storming into the kitchen of our apartment and throwing my backpack on the floor in the most flamboyant way I can. “Excuse me?” Daddy puts on his innocent face and hands me my mug of after-school chocolate milk. “DON’T ‘EXCUSE ME’ ME!” I slam down the mug, splattering the countertop and my hand. “I SAW YOU WITH THAT HUSSY! YOU WERE DANCING WITH HER! DANCING! WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT ABOUT, YOU BIG POOP?” Daddy almost spoils it all right there; the grin cracks across his face at the insult, but only for a split-second before he whips back into the act: “Young lady, don’t you DARE speak that way about the women I date!” “WELL, DON’T YOU DARE DANCE WITH THE WOMEN YOU DATE! THAT’S SOMETHING WE DO, YOU AND ME! NOBODY ELSE!” “OH YEAH?” “YEAH!” He wags a finger. “WHAT IF I LIKE DANCING WITH HUSSIES, HUH?” “IF YOU CHEAT ON ME, I’M GONNA CHEAT ON YOU!” “FINE!” “FINE!” “FINE!” “FINE!!!” We both lose it right then, collapsing against the table, laugh-

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December 2011

ing so hard it hurts. So, um, yeah, this is why Mom left. We’re a bit on the far side of normal, Daddy and me. Neighbors don’t call us the “CapsLock Couple” for nothing. “By the way,” Dad says as I gulp my chocolate milk, “the hussy’s name is Andy and I’ll be seein’ her again on Thursday, if we can coordinate our break times.” I choke and spew chocolate milk halfway across the table, but Dad’s already on his way out. “Andy?” I splutter. “What kind of a name is that?” “Short for Andrea,” Dad calls over his shoulder, opening the front door. “And glass houses, Crackerjack. Glass houses. Don’t go throwin’ stones.” I blow a very loud raspberry at him, but he just grins and shuts the door, leaving me alone with my chocolate milk mess. I rip off a jagged strip of paper towel to mop it up, but my hand is shaking, so I just make it worse. The splatters of spilled milk swirl across the table, twisting into a silhouette of my dad, my goofball dad, out in the parking lot of the supermarket where he works with our old boom box and some random lady who’s wearing a cashier’s vest. Daddy bobbing his head to the music, playing an invisible drum set, grinning from ear to ear; Random Lady laughing at him, then with him, then twirling and air-guitaring . . . I shouldn’t have wasted my free period rushing out there to see him. I should have gone with my pals to that new pizza place.

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December 2011

Sure, Daddy always takes his long break in the afternoon so he can come home and give me chocolate milk, but there’s no law that says I have to drop in on him during my breaks! I’m allowed to be an ungrateful tenth grader once in a while, right? Right! The paper towel tears down the middle, and I hurl it at the floor. “Damn it! ” Whoa. I must be really mad. Which is weird beyond belief, because I hardly ever get mad at Dad, and I never, ever, ever stay mad after a screaming match. We air our grievances, no matter how tiny they are, scream them out of our systems, laugh like maniacs, and get over ourselves. Except now I’ve gone all glitchy and I’m swearing at inanimate objects. Bravo, Crackerjack. Wanna go yell at the TV for showing the Five O’clock News at five o’clock? That’ll be super productive. But I can’t shake it. All through my homework, it eats at me, nibbling and gnawing like some overgrown rat. The more I think about it, the more my blood boils, so I try not thinking about it and my head practically pops off. I’m being ridiculous! It’s not like this Andy lady’s the first hussy to come along and sink her hooks in my dad. I mean, yeah, it’s weird to think of my dad as somebody’s boyfriend, but he’s not that old and he’s got good hair. It’s happened before. Still, Dad’s always had a hopeless case of the opposites. As in, he attracts them. Andy lady doesn’t fit the profile, but I suppose that after a lawyer, a doctor, and some gal who edits a major magazine, Dad was bound to notice the pattern—retail clerks and

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December 2011

sleek, sophisticated chicks do not go well together. Their loss, my gain. Suckers! But this Andy chick is different. Clearly. Argh. No, seriously, what kind of guy will dance with his daughter if he can dance with his girlfriend? A weirdo, that’s what. He is cheating on me. Oh, Dad, it is so on. My evil, scheming brain bubbles with ideas all night. The clincher only happens when I wake up because I look at the clock radio and it says 6:00 AM. So that settles it. I catch the bus super early without saying goodbye to Dad, hop off at school, and make a beeline for the gym in search of the only other human being who would ever be in school at this ungodly early hour. Quincy Howard—Quin, god of basketball. The guy every high school has; the one everyone loves, and hates, and loves to hate and wants to be? That’s Quin. Skin like dark chocolate, eyes like espresso. He’s freaking edible. The guy who takes the nerdiest first name ever and turns it into something uber cool. So sure, if I’m gonna cheat with anyone, it’ll be him. Something else about Quin? Something hardly anybody knows? He used to live in my apartment building. Yeah, when his parents separated for a bit in eighth grade, he and his mom lived there, right above Daddy and me. Quin’s dad and sister got their house, at least until his parents worked everything out and everyone went back to living happily ever after.

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December 2011

Quin challenged me to a game of one-on-one. Two years ago, I mean. After he saw me and my dad playing in the lot behind the building. I said no, of course; I only play basketball with Dad. Quin called me chicken, but he did it with a smile, and even back then he was a stud, so I couldn’t really be too offended. Well, let’s see if he’s still smiling when I’m through with him today. “Yo, Quin!” I shout, just as he charges for the hoop on the far side of the gym. His head snaps around in midair, but his body’s already in motion and the shot goes up. Swish. The ball drops through the net as Quin’s sneakers hit the ground. “Nice,” I call, sauntering out to the middle of the court. He scoops up the ball on a bounce and tucks it to his side. “What are you doing here, Crackerjack?” “Looking for you.” “Oh, really?” A sly smile steals across his face. The same smile I suddenly remember from all those times when he’d bang on my apartment door to interrupt a screaming match between me and Dad; I’d open the door and Quin’d be ready with some wisecrack: Just making sure the building’s shaking because of you guys, not ‘cause of an earthquake or something—And I’d shut the door in his face. Good times, good times. Makes me wish we’d hung out more once he moved out... “Why are you looking for me, Clara Jeanne Simon?” I stick out my tongue at his use of my name. “Stuff it, Quincy

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December 2011

Howard. I wanna take you up on your offer.” “My offer . . . ?” “I wanna play you one-on-one.” I point at the basketball in case he still doesn’t get it. “Oh!” The smile widens. “Now?” “God no. I’m way too tired. After school, okay?” “Yeah, yeah, okay by me.” “Good.” I turn and head for the double doors, my mind already on the squashy couch near the school’s front entrance, but Quin’s voice stops me. “Crackerjack, I thought you only play with your dad!” I toss my hair dramatically and grin over my shoulder at him. “Let’s just say I’m gonna be less of a daddy’s girl from now on.” The day skips by in flashes of nerve-tingling anticipation. Quin catches my eye in a couple of the classes we have together, and at lunch he even winks at me. Or at my friend sitting next to me. With Quin, it’s hard to tell. He is, as Mom would say, “rather shameless”. By the afternoon, I’ve got a strategy. Well, not really a strategy, more of a basic pro/con list: Quin’s faster than Dad, but he’s also shorter, and he prefers layups, not jump-shots. Right. So, duh, keep him away from the hoop and shoot over his head. I am so freaking brilliant, it’s scary. By the final bell, of course, I’m panicking. Full subscription what-was-I-thinking-oh-my-gosh-Crackerjack-you-idiot-what-ifhe-brings-friends-OH-MY-GOSH panic that almost makes me

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December 2011

head for the bus, ready to blame it on autopilot—but I stop myself. No way am I chickening out on Quin. The boy’s cocky enough; it’s time to take him down a peg. I break into a run before I can change my mind. Skidding into the gym, I see him, already changed into his team uniform, spinning a ball on his index finger. He didn’t bring friends. I kinda knew he wouldn’t. This is between us. “Show-off,” I snicker, crossing the court. Quin tosses the ball into the air, catching it on his other index finger, still spinning. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it, baby. You wanna change?” I’m wearing a T-shirt and worn out jeans. “Nah, I’m cool.” “Well, then, ladies first.” He smirks and bounces me the ball. I charge. Quin’s surprise freezes him for a split second before he dashes after me, cutting me off. But it’s enough; as his momentum carries him forward, I leap backward, letting off the shot while soaring away from the basket. Clang! Swish. Quin swears like a sailor. I grin. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it, baby!” “Oh, you are gonna pay for that!” In less than a minute, he’s tied the game. Another minute and he’s winning. He’s fast, he’s fantastic—I mean, he’s Quin Howard. But I can tell he doesn’t play against girls much; he’s way too careful up close. Doesn’t help that I’m all arms and legs and I look real spindly and breakable, but he’s gotta get over that.

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December 2011

I steal the ball and race back to my hoop, Quin pounding alongside me, trying to grab the ball back. “Crackerjack, I can’t believe you’re not on the basketball team!” I dart past him. “I can’t believe you are! ” He swerves in front of me. “Are you trash-talking me, Clara Jeanne?” “Why, do you feel trashed?” “A little bit!” He swipes at the ball, forcing me to stop dribbling. I pivot for an angle, but he’s blocking me everywhere, leaving only one option. We both jump. I shoot—and my arm crashes into Quin’s mouth. “Ahh!” He hits the ground, swaying with a dazed, stunned look that I’ve never seen on his smug face before. No, wait. I have seen it. Once. I might be the only one, but I saw it on that one day when our apartment building shook because of a screaming match not between me and Dad. Quin knocked on our door with that exact slapped-puppy look, the earsplitting yells from his apartment echoing over our heads. My parents . . . I just can’t . . . Can I eat supper with you guys? Now here it is again, except this time he’s bleeding all over the floor. “Ow, Quin, I’m sorry, I—” “It’s nothing,” he declares, straightening up, brushing away the blood from his lips. “Come on, let’s go—” “Quin, you’re bleeding! ” I cast around for something to blot the flood. “We’re not just gonna keep playing—”

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December 2011

“I’m fine, Crackerjack—” “Oh, ditch the macho! Playing through the pain is only sexy in the playoffs.” There’s nothing useful in sight, so I pull off my shirt. Quin whistles—for no reason; I’m still wearing a tank top—before I shove the green cloth into his mouth. He rolls his eyes and takes the crumpled shirt from me. In the quiet I hear a faint buzzing—my phone is vibrating in my knapsack, off on the side of the court, where I tossed it. Leaving Quin for a moment, I head over to check on it. As expected, Dad’s been calling me. Three missed calls, two new voicemails. I snort. Dad, you are so predictable. I flip open the phone and text, cackling under my breath: b home l8r. Dad hates text-speak. “Everything okay?” Quin’s voice is muffled by my shirt. “Yup.” I snap the phone shut and override him before he even starts talking again: “Now you go home and ice that lip, comprende? We’ll finish the game some other time.” “Can I keep the shirt?” “Please do.” “I will treasure it as a token of your love.” “God, Quin, you are such a cheeseball.” The apartment’s quiet when I get home. No Dad, of course; after a half-hour’s worth of waiting and calling me, I’m sure he had to get back to work. I skip into the kitchen and swing open the fridge, still grinning because Quin Howard hit on me like 2,000 times today.

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December 2011

“Hello, Clara Jeanne,” says a voice behind me. “Holy—!” I jump about ten feet in the air almost crashing into the fridge door, spinning around. “You’re—you’re not supposed to be here!” My mother, sitting in Dad’s chair with her long legs crossed at the ankles, arches one eyebrow, the way Stephen Colbert and supervillains do. “I’m paying half the rent. And I have a key.” She dangles it. “Ergo, I have every right to be here.” Mom looks like she came straight from work; she’s still wearing her power heels, power suit, power hair in a power bun obviously designed for the sole purpose of making me feel ridiculously under dressed in my tank top and jeans. My mom is, well, not the scariest person on the planet, but she’s way up there. Dad says she’s pretty, but it’s not the kind of pretty most people notice because they’re too busy, um, cowering in the corner. “I... I”—I hate how she makes me stutter—“I just thought you weren’t bringing the check by until next week.” Yeah, my mom’s the one who pays child support in this divorce. She’s a liberated woman. “In an uncharacteristic outburst of responsibility, your father called me.” She drums her fingers ominously on the tabletop. “He said you went AWOL and wanted me to make sure you got home in one piece.” Ordinarily, I’d have jumped down Mom’s throat for trashing Dad like that, but jeez! He called her over this? Drama queen much? “AWOL? I let him know I’d be home late!”

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December 2011

“After you knew he’d spent his break. That was petty, Clara.” Can you tell my mom totally makes a living from calling people out on their bull? I literally can’t think of anything to say. “Clara.” My mother rises to her feet with a click of her heels, her tone shifting into its speechifying-closing-argument mode. “There is undoubtedly something very liberating about being able to be rude and shout at someone as much as you want without fear of consequences. But there is also something very deceptive about it. When you shout about everything, the impact is lessened. Everything you shout about becomes a joke. And when you finally run into an issue to shout about that isn’t a joke, you’ve lost a valuable means of communication. That’s all.” She brushes past me on her way out of the kitchen, then pauses. “Why do you have blood on your arm?” I look down and spot a smudge of Quin’s blood on my forearm. “Oh, I bit a boy. He bled all over me and ran away screaming about vampires. It was gross.” “Clara Jeanne, I love you dearly, but I swear you’re getting stranger by the day.” It’s close to midnight when Dad gets home. I’m lying in bed, trying not to feel guilty even though it’s totally my fault that he took a super-long break this afternoon and had to make it up with a chunk of the night shift. Totally my fault. His footsteps are coming toward my door, so I pretend to be asleep, making sure not to overdo it on the fake snoring. After a minute, he still hasn’t said a word, but I haven’t heard the floor

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creak to tell me he’s gone. Weird. Too curious for my own good, I risk opening my eyes as slits, squinting at him through my lashes. He’s just standing there. Leaning on the door frame, watching me sleep. I wanna sit up so bad and shout at him, OH MY GOSH, DAD, YOU’RE CREEPING ME OUT! and then he’ll shout back about what an obnoxious doo-doo brain I was today and everything’ll be normal again. But I don’t sit up, and he doesn’t say anything. A few more seconds tick by. I try to decode the look on his face, but there are too many shadows and my eyelashes aren’t exactly transparent. I should know him well enough to figure it out anyway, but I can’t tell if he’s upset or angry or hurt or worried or anything. Why won’t you yell at me? He takes a deep breath, exhales softly, and shuts my door. Breakfast the next morning is awful. Dad hands me my cereal and sits down with his own. Once or twice he opens his mouth to say something, then clams up real fast. There’s this sick simmer in my stomach, and I can’t even look him in the eye. Yell at me or go to work, Dad, yell at me or go to work . . . “I’m goin’ to work.” He stands up. He’s waiting for me to stop him. He wants me to make the first move, to admit something’s wrong here, something we’ve gotta deal with—Yeah, that is so not happening, Dad. I poke at my cereal. “See ya later.”

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December 2011

He leaves and I can’t eat. What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with him? This is nuts! I don’t want to think about this. I wanna think about good stuff. I wanna think about Quin . . . But my brain’s stuck in let’s-depress-the-heck-outta-Crackerjack mode, and all I can think about Quin is that one time he ate supper with us. It was such a not-Quin moment that in two years I’ve barely thought about it, but I swear, he sat where I’m sitting and poked at his spaghetti like I’m poking my cereal. They always talk, he’d muttered. They never yell. Maybe it’s good for them. Get it out of their systems. Mom can’t be right, can she? That Dad and me, wackos that we are, might just be the polar opposite of Quin’s folks, that we always yell, and it’s the real honest-to-goodness talking we need to get out of our systems if we’re gonna get ourselves back together? It worked for Quin; he’s so together now that seeing him hurt or thinking he might be human enough to like me for real is like a window into an alternate universe. But . . . talk to Dad? I can’t even . . . I don’t . . . I trudge into school early. Not as early as yesterday, but still before anybody but Quin. He’s finished with his morning practice when I walk into the gym and is changing out of his jersey into his dress-code-approved polo shirt. “Hey Crackerjack, how’s it going?” He doesn’t sound any different, but his lip is majorly swollen. “Ouch, Quin, that looks painful.” Quin takes a step closer. “Why don’t you kiss it and make it

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December 2011

better?” “Quin!” Flirting is one thing, but this is starting to get really, I don’t know, serious? “C’mon Crackerjack, I thought you were trying to be less of a daddy’s girl.” “Are you pressuring me, Quincy Howard?” “Wouldn’t dream of it. Pressuring you on the court got me whacked in the mouth, so pressuring you off the court’d probably get me kneed in the balls. Which would be totally hot, but no fun.” He tries to flash that swaggering smile, but winces and stops. I can’t take this anymore. Is he flirting, is he serious, is it all a joke—ENOUGH! “Quin Howard, I am starting to think you’ve got a crush on me.” Oh gosh, I don’t think it’s healthy for my heart to pound this hard. No way he’ll admit it, he’s gonna deny it— “Clara Jeanne Simon,” he says softly, leaning in even closer, his nose basically a millimeter away from mine, “I am starting to think you’re a tease.” What?! “Well, maybe I am.” The words jump out of my mouth before I can stop them, but I know they don’t matter, not now, not when I’ve got Quin Howard wrapped around my little finger! This right here, this has gotta be how Mom feels in her courtroom when she paints some witness into a corner. Power on top of power, except I don’t need the heels, the suit, or the hair. Oh, man, what a rush. I’m so, so tempted to just turn and walk out on him right now,

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December 2011

see if he follows, string him along like those glamorous girls in the high school shows, find out exactly how much sway I’ve got over him. But that picture of my mother slices through my plans. Strength. Control. Power. She’s got ‘em in spades. And there’s nobody in this world who I’d less like to be. Then there’s me and Dad. Screwing everything up, stuck in our old pattern like hamsters in wheels, terrified to tip the balance or use our old yelling to go somewhere new. The conversationless breakfast, the aborted sentences, the silent power struggle. I’m not about to let that happen with Quin just because this is all different and scary and happening so fast. So I kiss him. Not a real kiss, just the one he asked for, quick and light against that swollen upper lip. “All better?” “Yup.” He grins widely, this time without a trace of a wince, and I realize that he’s been playing me as much as I just played him. I grin back. “So, Quin, you gonna ask me out, or what?” When I get home after school, Dad’s there waiting with my mug of chocolate milk, and I wanna hug him but I don’t. Again, we sit down in super awkward silence, but my head’s spinning and I’m walking on air and if I don’t say something soon I’m gonna explode. Dad’s biting his lip, looking at me anxiously, and I have a feeling I’m looking back at him the exact same way. We both burst out at once: “Dad, I have a boyfriend!”

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December 2011

“Crackerjack, I want you to meet Andy!” I stare at him; he stares at me. “YOU WHAT?” we both yell, and finally, finally we’re on the same page again, laughing our heads off, and then I’m spilling it all, how I used Quin to cheat with basketball, how I couldn’t just use him because he’s freaking Quin Howard, how he asked me to the movies this weekend. I have about a zillion I’m-talking-about-a-boy-to-MY-DAD mini heart attacks, but Dad just listens to my whole starry-eyed teenage monologue with an I-kinda-knew-this-day-would-come smile on his face. When I’m done, he leans back in his chair, sips his own chocolate milk, and says, “I could, um, give you the 411 on me and Andy, if you want—” “Ew, Dad, TMI!” He laughs, checks the wall clock, then leans forward again and asks quietly, “What d’you say I take the rest of the day off and we watch Netflix and go rollerblading? Seeing as those are the only two things neither of us has cheated on.” “Heck, yeah!” We clunk our plastic elephant mugs together, toasting our future fidelity.

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December 2011

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December 2011

Ladybug Kingdom Leila Gaskin

A small, dark object streaked across Dorcas Amelia Brown’s bedroom, landing on the softly illuminated wall to her left. She grunted as she rolled over to focus on the moving spot. The first incursion of ladybugs had taken place, and Dorrie hadn’t even gotten out of bed. Dorrie remembered the first year of the ladybug invasion being an affront to her mother’s sense of decorum. Camille, her mother, waged war with vast quantities of bug spray, vacuuming, squishing, and several bug-bomb mortars. She stated again and again that an insect’s place was in the great outdoors, not in her house. If they chose to invade, it was her God-given duty to cull the misinformed insects from the gene pool. Year after year, the colorful spotted bugs arrived at the end of spring and went dormant at the first killer frost. After thirty years, the whirr of wings seldom raised an eyebrow. Edward Brown always had a twinkle in his eye as he watched his wife fight against the natural order of things. Edward was content to manage his kingdom while Camille strove to establish order. Tragedy befell the Brown’s kingdom when Edward passed away, leaving his queen in charge. Now Camille was dead. The

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December 2011

kingdom was in disarray. By the time the ladybug had made it to the corner of the wall, Dorrie’s haze of exhaustion began to evaporate. Clarity emerged as dawn’s aurora became the bright, morning sun. With a groaning yawn, she swung her legs over the edge of her bed. The simple morning rituals were comforting. Dorrie looked at the burgundy suit she’d hung on the closet door the night before. She refused to wear black. Camille always said that black was an unforgiving color. The rich burgundy added an illusion of vitality to Dorrie’s worn down countenance. With careful precision, she shimmied into her pantyhose. Her hands trembled as she reached up to remove the skirt from its hanger. The rasp of the zipper seemed to fill the entire room. Dorrie finished dressing and gave herself a cursory look in the mirror before she started for the kitchen. She was completely uninspired by what she saw. Her quiet steps and the occasional groans of the waking structure were the only sounds as Dorrie entered the kitchen. The detritus of the previous evening’s meal lay strewn across the counter like the ladybug corpses on the windowsills of seasons past. A ladybug missile jerked Dorrie out of her reverie. Dorrie gave herself a quick mental and physical shake. There were dishes to return to friends—they went in one pile. House dishes went in another. She glared at the full dishwasher, knowing that she’d have to put them away because she lived there. Carl wouldn’t

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December 2011

think to lend a helping hand; he wasn’t a resident anymore. That made him a ‘guest’. Dorrie grabbed an apron to protect her clothes. Once everyone woke up there wouldn’t be enough time to change. She was stretching on her tiptoes to put the last platter away when she heard the shuffle of pajama-clad feet. Without turning around, she knew Kyle would be in Bob the Builder pajamas. The threeyear-old did everything in Bob the Builder. “Auntie Dorrie?” piped the sweet voice from behind her. Dorrie whirled around, the first smile of the day struggling to stay on her face. “I’z hungee. You makin’ bekfest?” Dorrie crouched down with her arms open. Kyle was a world class snuggler. He loved his Auntie Dorrie and she loved him right back. She squeezed Kyle tight, afraid to let go, until a muffled protest squeaked in her ear. “Auntie Dorrie, you squishin’ me!” “Oops, sorry about that.” Dorrie caught a sob before it escaped. “It’s just that you’re so squishable!” She gave Kyle an extra squeeze. “You don’ squish me, I pop!” Dorrie let Kyle go with a watery chuckle. She led him to the booster seat at the kitchen table. “What do you want for breakfast, munchkin? Animal pancakes or waffles?” Dorrie knew Kyle’s needs were simple and consistent. Very few things impacted the life of a three year old. “I wan nanimal cakes!” squealed Kyle.

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December 2011

“Nanimal cakes it is. Can you help me make them?” “I da best helper. Mama said.” “I know.” Dorrie set out all the ingredients for the pancakes on the kitchen table before helping Kyle stand on a kitchen chair. His inexpert hands enthusiastically dumped the ingredients into the bowl, the counter, and onto the floor. Fortunately, the apron shielded Dorrie’s dark clothes from the worst of the flour. Kyle looked on with anticipation as, dollop by dollop, the animal cakes took shape on the sizzling griddle. His joyous laughter at the dogs, cats, and chickens that filled the plate lifted Dorrie’s heart. Just as a chicken was ready to be flipped from the searing surface, Dorrie started at the familiar sound of feet clumping down the hallway—almost losing the chicken in the process. Carl stalked into the kitchen. Three ladybugs flew across the doorway, causing him to rear back. “Why the hell didn’t Mom get rid of these damn bugs? They’re everywhere!” Kyle’s eyes grew wide as he heard his daddy say two of the words on the no-no list. Carl saw his son the moment after he finished his snarl. The look he sent Dorrie accused her of everything that was wrong with the universe, including his son’s loss of innocence. Dorrie shrugged off the acrimony as she turned back to the smoking griddle. “Just keep the darned things away from me,” Carl muttered as he sat down at the table. Carl took one look at the plate stacked full of animal shapes, looked at his son, and then his sister. He abruptly got up and left the kitchen.

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December 2011

“Isn’t Daddy hungee?” Kyle stared after his father’s retreating form. Dorrie watched Carl leave. Her brother was going to have to learn how to face a plate of animal pancakes on his own. “I guess not, munchkin.” She swiftly set the table, setting extra plates for Kyle’s mother and the departed Carl, who would eventually rejoin them. “Let’s eat. It’s going to be a long day.” A lighter set of footsteps came down the hallway. Dorrie’s sister-in-law, Sarah, appeared in the kitchen doorway dressed for the day in somber apparel. Her dress was a deep navy. “Mommy, Auntie Dorrie made nanimal cakes!” Kyle waved his full fork around the table. “Like Gramma’s!” Sarah and Dorrie exchanged pained looks. Their tired eyes reflected the same sorrow. Sarah’s hand smoothed her son’s tousled hair. “I’m sure they are, sweetie. Gramma taught your auntie how to make them, so they are the best.” Sarah paused by Dorrie’s chair to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. Dorrie reached up to cover Sarah’s hand with her own in gratitude. Sarah took a seat next to her son. “I can clean up in here if you need to take care of anything.” “No,” Dorrie looked around the kitchen that was crushing her with memories measured in years. “No, I need to stay busy.” She got up and began loading the dishwasher. She hoped to have them ready to be picked up by their owners before they left. Sarah came to stand by her. “You need to talk to Carl.” Dorrie turned to her sister-in-law as rage bubbled just below

#eFiction

December 2011

the fragile facade of calm. “What am I supposed to say to him?” Dorrie watched Sarah struggle to come up with an answer as she stared out the kitchen window. Dorrie knew her truth. The last several months had been an ordeal. Dorrie had been the one who’d given up everything to care for Camille while Carl ignored his mother. Belligerent at best, damning at worst, he had stayed away. The roles of caretaker and daughter caught Dorrie in an emotional vice. No respite, no support. Sarah looked Dorrie straight in the eye. “You say whatever you need to.” Dorrie’s jaw clenched as the tension that possessed her body turned her into a statue. “That’s easy for you to say. He can’t even eat breakfast with his son because there are animal pancakes.” She stared back at Sarah. “He wasn’t there at the end. She begged. She pleaded.” Tears tracked down Dorrie’s face. “I begged, pleaded, and screamed for him to come. Take the time to speak with her on the telephone. Do you know what he said to me?” Sarah stayed silent. “It’s just another bid for attention. She’ll get over it. She always does.” Dorrie slammed a pottery platter on the granite counter—shards flew everywhere. “Stay right where you are!” Their voices chorused at Kyle who’d been listening to the exchange in silence. His wide eyes told them that he knew something was wrong. Sarah ran to the pantry to grab a broom to sweep up the shards while Dorrie wiped down the counter. The dishrag glit-

#eFiction

December 2011

tered with moisture and pottery. Kyle was caught in the vise of tension; the coveted nanimal cakes no longer held his attention. A quiet whine started at the kitchen table. Tears trembled on his long eyelashes; his tiny shoulders slumped in his Bob the Builder pajamas. “I sorry,” he whispered. “Oh baby,” Sarah pulled her sticky son into her arms, “why are you sorry?” “Your mom’s right, munchkin.” Dorrie crouched down next to the chair as she brushed a stubborn lock of hair back from his eyes. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. We do.” “Everyone is sad.” Kyle’s voice quavered. A quiet whirr interrupted the tableau as a ladybug landed on the table by Kyle’s plate. “I no t’ink Daddy likes ladybugs.” Dorrie gave a choked laugh. “I think you’re right.” “Gramma tol’ me about ‘em.” Kyle sniffled into his pajama sleeve. “Ladybugs suppos’d to make peoples happy.” He looked at his mother and aunt. Dorrie stared at her nephew. “Munchkin, when did you talk to Gramma about ladybugs?” Kyle sniffled into his mother’s shoulder. “Last time Mama ‘n me came to vis’t you ‘n’ Gramma.” Dorrie cringed at the memories of that visit. Camille had been bitterly disappointed that her son hadn’t come. Camille had showered Kyle and Sarah with affection and gifts. When they left, she had taken her disappointment out on the only constant

#eFiction

December 2011

in her life—Dorrie. Sarah stroked her son’s back. “What did Gramma tell you?” “That ladybugs keep the happyies.” Kyle peered up at Dorrie. Dorrie met Kyle’s gaze. “The happyies? What does that mean?” “The ladybugs keep the happyies wherever they are.” With the clarity of his age, Kyle looked at his mother and aunt. “We needs lots of happyies here, that’s why we have lots of ladybugs.” Dorrie reached over and plucked Kyle from his mother’s arms and squeezed him tight. “We needs the happyies here. Yes, we do.” Carl’s heavy, measured footsteps sounded down the hallway. He was fiddling with his tie as he stood in the doorway. “Can you help me with this darn thing?” His eyes glanced off his son as he edited his language. With a sigh, Sarah pulled her husband into the kitchen. Deliberately seating him at the table, she tilted his chin up and expertly tied the Windsor knot. “Eat while I get Kyle washed up and dressed.” She wiped the sticky hands, then shepherded her son down the hallway as she made her escape. The only sounds that broke the silence were the tick of the kitchen clock and the occasional whir of wings. Dorrie said nothing as she rose to stand at the sink. “Are you going to talk to me?” Carl asked. Dorrie stubbornly stayed silent. “You’re going to have to say something sooner or later.” Dorrie would rather it be later, much later. The scraping of a kitchen chair across the floor warned Dorrie

#eFiction

December 2011

of Carl’s appraoch. His hand fell on her shoulder and he spun her around to face him. “Say what you have to say,” he said. “You really don’t want to hear what I have to say.” Dorrie’s voice sounded foreign to her ears; gravelly, contained, an explosion captured a second before the devastation. “I just said I did.” Carl’s hand weighed heavily on Dorrie’s shoulder. The kitchen counter prevented her from breaking free of his grasp. She looked her brother straight in the eye, her voice wintry. “Take your hand off me.” The childish retort sprung from his lips. “Or what?” Calmly, she reached up. With deliberate ease, she bent his thumb back, twisted it, and then applied pressure on the thumb joint. Gasping, Carl fell to his knees. In a conversational tone, Dorrie said, “You are lucky I adore your wife and son.” She examined her brother as a scientist would a specimen on a slide. Carl tried to free himself, but the basic defensive move only became more painful with each movement. “I can’t figure out why she married you, but she did. So you must have some redeeming qualities.” Dorrie released Carl’s thumb. Carl cradled his hand, glaring at his sister. “You want me to have my say? Fine.” She gave him a scathing look. “No, don’t get up.” The last three years of watching her mother pass from a vibrant woman to a shell who obsessed over the boy in front of her infuriated Dorrie. “She spent the last six months begging for you to spend time with her. A phone call would have worked.” Dorrie

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December 2011

leaned against the counter. “I cared for a woman who didn’t give a damn about me. I got fired from my job. I lost everything. You were the last thing she thought about.” Tears flooded her eyes. “And you couldn’t give her the time of day.” “I…” “Don’t you dare give me an excuse! There are no excuses. Now you want to talk? Are you fucking serious?” “She killed Dad!” Carl blurted. “How could I forgive her for that?” “What did you say?” Dorrie stared at Carl in disbelief. “She could have saved Dad. Instead she didn’t let him get the treatment he needed.” “What the hell are you talking about?” “Dad told me. She told the doctor to stop with the treatments.” Dorrie had been aware of the terminal nature of their father’s illness. By the time Edward Brown had gotten over the denial and anger of his body betraying him, there was no magical cure. He was beyond the help he begged the doctors to give him. He had grasped at any treatment like a drowning victim. Camille had to make the decision with the doctor to stop authorizing experimental treatments. “Yes, she did.” Dorrie let the bomb drop between them. “Dad was a dead man. He’d waited too late to explore treatment options. There was nothing the doctors, or God, could do.” Carl surged to his feet to tower over Dorrie. “She killed him.” Dorrie didn’t back down. “No, you moron, she made the right

#eFiction

December 2011

decision.” She slapped her palms against his chest and shoved, giving them space. “The doctor bills were bankrupting them.” “I’d rather have Dad here.” “Dad wouldn’t have lasted any longer with a different treatment.” Dorrie shouted in Carl’s face. “He was terminal. What part of terminal don’t you understand?” “Dad said he was getting better!” “Dad had his head shoved so far up his butt in denial in the last days that he didn’t know anything.” Dorrie ripped the scab off the festering wound. “He lied to you. You wasted your last years with Mom because Dad lied to you.” She stalked out of the kitchen. Sobs racked Dorrie’s body as she leaned against her bedroom door. Heavy footsteps paused outside. Dorrie held her breath. She couldn’t deal with Carl’s regrets. Not today. The door muted Sarah’s urgent voice. Carl’s footsteps continued down the hallway to the guestrooms. She pressed her palms into her burning eyes. Dorrie could hear her father’s voice in her head whispering in a better time, “No matter what, family is family.” “Sorry Dad,” Dorrie murmured. “I’m too tired to deal with family crap.” A red spot landed on her sleeve. Dorrie watched the beetle crawl up her arm. Ladybug bodies lacked apparent aerodynamics, yet flew. They kept the gardens free of pests, wintering in slumber with their families close by, ready to take flight in the

#eFiction

December 2011

spring for the next generation. The ladybug reached the top of her shoulder and opened its carapace, revealing the delicate, paned wings. With a soft whir, it took off. Dorrie reached up to gently catch the beetle. She wondered if the ladybugs had finally run out of ‘happy’. She’d certainly lost hers. Dorrie lifted the window sash and set the ladybug free into the bushes that were starting to green outside her window. She watched for a moment before turning to the vanity. The hollow-eyed woman Dorrie saw in the mirror startled her. For the first time in a long time, Dorrie made an effort to try to make herself presentable. The concealer gave the illusion of life in her grieving eyes, and the creamy foundation smoothed out the blotchiness left by the tears shed over the past week. The mask was in place, ready to crack at any moment. A soft knock at her bedroom door brought Dorrie back to the now. “The car will be here in an hour,” Sarah called softly. “We’ll be waiting for you in the front room.” Dorrie spent a moment pulling the tattered shreds of peace around her. Today was about the rituals and rites of those who mourned. Dorrie jumped as the bedroom door opened. “Dad was not a liar.” Her jaw clenched as she met Carl’s glare in the vanity’s mirror. “I did not call Dad a liar.” Before Carl could refute her statement Dorrie continued, “I said he lied.” She let the words stand

#eFiction

December 2011

between them. “There is a difference.” “No there isn’t,” was his petulant reply. Dorrie had watched her mother deal with her father’s denial of his illness and then the aftermath of the desperate scramble for a miracle. Her father had railed against her mother’s supposed callousness to his illness. Her mother had vented her frustration to her daughter regarding a husband seeking miracles where none existed. Mired in helplessness and misery, Dorrie had reached out to Carl for a buoy in the violent emotional tempest. No haven existed. Dorrie refused to turn around. “I don’t have to justify anything to you. You checked out long ago.” She closed her eyes against the tears she refused to waste on her brother. “If you had made an effort...” “Damn it! Look at me.” After the incident in the kitchen, Carl knew better than to lay hands on his sister. “I’m talking to you.” “No, you’re talking at me,” Dorrie countered. “You are here because your son loved his grandmother.” Her eyes met Carl’s through the mirror. “If I had my way, you’d never set foot in this house again.” “That’s not your choice.” “Mom might have wanted you by her side her last days. She might have obsessed about her relationship with you, but her mind was sharp.” Dorrie finally turned around. “She knew why you stayed away. She knew how you tried to poison everyone

#eFiction

December 2011

around you against her.” The barren grief in her eyes met the childish rage in his. “If you’re expecting a payout, you might as well leave now.” “You bitch. Mom wouldn’t do that.” “You mean she wouldn’t cut you off after you spread rumors all over town how she let Dad die for the insurance money?” Dorrie rose to her feet. “Or how you tried to get her declared incompetent four months ago instead of answering the phone.” “While you took care of her, poisoning her against me.” “I never said a word, Carl.” Exhaustion pressed down on Dorrie, the conversation more than she could take. “I called you every day begging you to call her. You stopped taking my calls.” Dorrie advanced on her brother, forcing him to take one step, two steps backward. He found himself in the hallway. The doorbell rang. The car from the funeral service had arrived. “I can live with my actions.” Dorrie shrugged on her suit jacket and retrieved her purse from the bed. She picked up the enameled ladybug brooch that sat on the bedside table and pinned it to her lapel. Dorrie looked toward her future, her kingdom before her. “I have nothing to fear from the dead.”

#eFiction

December 2011

#eFiction

December 2011

Object Permanence Marcin Wrona

I’ve been playing peekaboo for twenty minutes now. Twenty minutes. I try to sneak one past him. “Where’d you go? Where’d you go?” My hands cover my eyes, almost. Baby see, baby do. I go straight for my phone. Maybe I can text something out. Maybe I can tell Mel I’ll be home late. Maybe I can send a desperate cry for help over to Child Services. No dice. He knows something’s up. I’ve kept him waiting for too long. He gurgles and laughs and starts pawing after the phone. There’s only one thing I can do. “Peekaboo!” He bounces up and down, flailing pudgy limbs about like he’s swatting flies. Round n+1. “Where’d you go? Where’d you go?” He hides his eyes, and I hide the phone. My iThing is old news when I raise the curtain and his eyes open and he squeals his delight all over the security foyer. My phone’s safe. I hope Mel’s not worrying about me. Peekaboo, kid. Peekaboo. It all started in my office. I was sitting at my desk, entering the day’s credit card receipts, when a knock came at the door. “Come in.” “Mister Tam? I ... uh ... there’s a baby here.”

#eFiction

December 2011

“A what?” Asunción held him up. He squealed. It was a baby alright. “Lost?” “I guess so.” “Any customers? Anybody that might be mom or dad?” No. Of course not. “Alright,” I said. “Why don’t you close up early and take him down to mall security?” “I have to go pick up my little brother. They start running the clock if I’m more than fifteen minutes late, and it starts at twenty bucks.” I had a twenty in my wallet. Could’ve just handed it over. But I like Asunción. She’s the kind of girl who actually means it when she tells customers how hot they look in new halter tops or yoga pants. What could I do? “Right, I forgot. I’ll take him.” When I picked him up, I felt like he should be squirming. I mean, who’s this giant of a man, right? Why’s he grabbing me? Where’s he taking me? He didn’t, though. He just gave me a wet smile and decided to test whether Operation: Steal Rob’s Glasses could go off without a hitch. It did. I tried to take them back, but my hands are twelve times the size of his, and he didn’t want to let go. My gentle pressure is his table vise. “I need those to see!” He didn’t care. I gave my glasses up for lost and navigated by smell and memory through a world of smeared neon and blurry

#eFiction

December 2011

armchairs. Somewhere along the way, I apologized to an indoor tree for bumping into it. I tried to take my glasses back around then, but they weren’t going anywhere. I tried to reason with him. I tried to plead. It’s a minor miracle that I even made it to the security room, but there I was, face to inkblot with the rent-a-cop on duty. She told me to go sit down, that she’d run an announcement over the intercom. She told me not to worry in a flat-line voice, and went back to clicking about with her mouse. I didn’t need to see to realize she was bored unto Solitaire. I wasn’t getting help here, and baby had by now decided to ramp up hostilities. He tugged at my hair and bludgeoned my ear with little fists, laughing his squeaky baby laugh. I needed a distraction. I needed something, anything. So I sat him down and covered his eyes. I peekabooed. And here we are. He gave up my glasses almost instantly. Actually, he kinda flung them at the table with all of his wimpy might, but no harm done. I read, somewhere, that babies have issues with something they call ‘object permanence’. When he closes his eyes and doesn’t see me there, he actually thinks I’m gone, that I’ve disappeared. I’ve run off at last, back to my office, back to my ledgers, back home. Every time those eyes open back up again, it’s like I’ve returned from Afghanistan. A big, watery hello, and a laugh, and

#eFiction

December 2011

little hands flying every which way. It seems like he should be old enough to realize I haven’t gone anywhere. I mean, he managed to walk into the office, didn’t he? I see teeth like Chiclets poking through his gums. He’s gotta be at least a year old, right? But then, how the hell would I know? I only know he’s a boy because he’s been colour-coded for my convenience with designer baby-jeans and a blue Marlins tee. Even has blue eyes to finish the effect, blue eyes without any veins in them, any lines around them. Kid’s barely out of the womb, and he thinks he can fling my glasses around the room and try to steal my phone? Peekaboo. Keep right on laughing. I’ll admit it was cute at first, but it’s been twenty minutes. For him, every time is like the first time. I try to distract him with a walk around the waiting room. I try to read to him from some battered-ass Sports Illustrated issue about LeBron leaving Cleveland. Nothing. I guess basketball’s not his thing. Peekaboo! “Have you heard anything yet?” I ask. The rent-a-cop only shrugs. “What...what happens if his mother doesn’t...?” She rolls her eyes. “She’ll be here, sir. You don’t need to stay. We do this, like, three times a day.” But I’m going to stay. What choice do I have? I can see exactly how much this little guy interests her. If I weren’t here distracting him, he’d probably be poking around light sockets or something.

#eFiction

December 2011

You owe me your life, baby. You owe me. So why are you the one giving orders? Little hands cover little eyes. I cringe a little. “Where’d you go? Where’d you go?” My heart isn’t in it. His is pumping endorphins from oversized head to every stubby finger. Peekaboo! He slams the table, over and over, laughing like he just got out of Arkham. I don’t know what this kid’s problem is. I’ll need a shrink soon, to explain what’s so damn funny. I’m beginning to think I’m the one that’s crazy. He’s got it all figured out. He goes wherever he wants, gets carried around and fussed over, and the peekaboo. It never ends, the peekaboo. It never ... Peekaboo! “Can you run another announcement, please?” “Sir, we’re limited to one announcement every two minutes. Company policy, sir. It upsets the customers.” “The mall’s closing!” “Yes, and we need to announce that, too.” She doesn’t understand. No, no, that’s not it. She doesn’t care. She’s jaded. She’s seen a hundred babies come through here, each wilder than the last, each a little ball of id siphoning laugh after maniacal laugh from whatever poor Samaritan it’s managed to latch on to. No wonder she wants no part of this. Who would? Peekaboo! His laugh is a little more subdued this time. Hands are more mime than seizure. Could it be? Maybe... just maybe...

#eFiction

December 2011

“Come on, little guy. Let’s read about LeBron James! You like LeBron James!” He covers his eyes. My heart sinks. I decide I’ll wait it out. An experiment. Maybe if I just... He’s getting impatient. Oh God, I think he’s going to cry. Sweet Jesus, he’s starting to cry. What have I done? Why didn’t I just leave him with Asunción? She has a little brother. She’d know what to do! I’ve gone about this all wrong, and now I’m stuck with this little ear-splitter, and the only thing I know how to do is cover my eyes right back and goofy-voice my way through “Where’d you go?” and hope it’s all better and: Peekaboo! He’s not crying. “Yeah! Good boy! That’s a good, strong little boy.” He’s grinning, tears forgotten. Or maybe they were just for show. Bouncing up and down. Flailing around. I don’t know what’s going on in his pituitary, but man, what I could do with some of that baby Red Bull. He covers his eyes. I cover mine. Peekaboo! “Would the mother of a baby boy dressed in blue please come to the security office? Lost baby in the security office. Thank you.” For a fleeting instant he seems distracted. I think he knows the announcements are about him. How can he know that if he doesn’t realize I’m still here when he closes his eyes? I tried that dog-blanket thing once, and even my remedial student of a bull-

#eFiction

December 2011

dog could figure out that night hadn’t come early. Distraction fades. We’re back in business. Hands cover eyes. I die inside. We boo three more peeks before somebody bursts through the door: blonde lady, looks like him, except he’s babystylin’ and her clothes are off-brand. “I…I came about a…Jesus, Jimmy, there you are. There you are.” He bounces up and down, and she rushes to scoop him up. Her eyes are I’ve-been-crying red, which makes the blue irises pop. The contrast is kind of unsettling. “You’ll have to fill out this incident report, ma’am,” says the security guard, apparently untouched by the reunion. Mom sighs, looks back over her shoulder, looks to me. I give her a little wave. “Rob Tam. He wandered into my store.” She sighs and gives me a weak smile. “Thank you. I…” The smile goes cartoon-crooked. Squiggly line. Looks like she’s about to burst into tears. Peekaboo? I elect, instead, to go the adult route. “Hey, it happens. It’s, like, a rite of passage. I gave my parents the slip a few times, too.” Her smile gets a little bit stronger, then turns into a wince when Jimmy twists her hair around his hand and gives a good pull. “Yeah. Yeah. God. Still the scariest thing I’ve ever been through. Thanks for bringing him in.” The security guard taps a pen on the counter. She isn’t subtle. Mom goes over to the report. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to

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December 2011

be doing. Am I good to go? Would that be rude? She makes it through half a line before Jimmy starts squirming and babbling. She tries to calm him, fails, and walks back to me. “Could you?” She looks embarrassed. “Yeah, sure.” I hold out my hands and a baby’s thrust into them. He looks like he’s happy to see me. I put him down and close my eyes. He closes his. Peekaboo! “Oh, he loves peekaboo.” Yeah, lady. Well aware. She finishes the form, comes back, grabs Jimmy away. He was happy to play peekaboo, but variety is the spice of life, and he babbles and flails at the prospect of hair to pull. “Can I buy you a coffee or something? As a thank you?” Is she coming on to me? That would be awkward. Of course she’s not coming on to you, idiot. It’s just a thank you for taking care of her son. But what if she is? I don’t see a ring. I decide it’s best to be prudent. “Nah, thanks. Just happy to help out. I’m afraid I need to finish up some work at the office.” “Where’s that?” “Femme Fatale.” “Oh, I’m parked right near there.” Can’t get out of this one. She’s probably just being nice. I ‘adjust’ my wedding ring to draw some attention, and stick out a hand. “Didn’t catch your name.”

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December 2011

She shakes my hand. “Ellen.” “Pleasure.” There’s a stroller outside the security office. Jimmy protests a little when she belts him into it, but in the end, he goes quietly, distracted by a sippy cup. Ellen wheels him through a closing mall. Some of the stores have already brought their security bars down. The rest are full of disinterested teenagers trying to hint their always-right customers home so that they can close up. “How’d he get loose?” I ask. “He hates his stroller. I let him walk around a little while I checked the mall directory. He’s never run off before.” “They’re full of surprises.” “No kidding. God, I feel stupid.” I wave a dismissive hand. “Happens to the best of us.” I look down at Jimmy. He’s happy with his cup. Doesn’t look up at me. “Do you have any kids?” she asks. “Nah,” I say, but I’m happy for a chance to throw my personal life up into the mix. “My wife’s finishing up a degree, so it’s not really the time.” We make small talk all the way to Femme Fatale, and there we part ways. “Say bye to the nice man, Jimmy.” He doesn’t so much as look at me. That’s the thanks I get. “Guess not,” I say. “He’s all tired out.”

#eFiction

December 2011

From what? Peekaboo? She extends a hand. I shake it. And then, Jimmy looks over. Big, wet Chiclet-studded smile. “Bye, Jimmy.” He gurgles something that sounds like, “Aba-ba-gum.” I’ll take it. He turns around and beats his hands against the stroller. Just like that, I’ve disappeared. In the end, I can’t take more ledgers. I decide I’ll do them in the morning and step out into a still-hot Miami afternoon. The drive home may as well be a walk for the time I’m making. I realize I’ve forgotten to call home, so I text “late day … coming home now” when I hit a red light. I don’t get a reply. I make it to our bungalow nearly an hour later. The usual stream of junk mail wedged into the screen door. Howard starts barking when I so much as touch the screen, which means he’s been bored. He’s jumping up at me the moment I come inside. “Hey, boy. Hello! Who’s a good boy?” It’s him. He knows it. His stub of a tail is wagging so fast I’m afraid he might lift off the ground. “Mel?” No answer. I walk into the kitchen and toss my keys on the counter. There’s a note up on the whiteboard on the fridge: “Tea with auntie. Food in the fridge. XOXO.” I find a plastic bin full of yesterday’s pasta and go collapse on the couch while Howard bumps his blunt nub of a head into my shins.

#eFiction

December 2011

“Just you and me, huh, boy?” He barks his assent. I reach out for the remote. There’s nothing on but pornpun-titled auction shows. I flip as far as Red Hot Pawn before disgust sets in and I call up the on-screen guide. Heat are hosting the Raptors. I flip over to that, but LeBron and the boys are up by thirty with some ten minutes left, and I’m too squeamish to watch torture. I try to teach the dog peekaboo, but it just isn’t the same.

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December 2011

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December 2011

Garbage Man Richard S. Freeland

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” Romans 12:19 Henry Hatcher rises with the rooster and is in the shower when the clock radio snaps on in the middle of the Early Bird Garden Show—“with Hank Hanley!” Hanley is talking some nonsense about loading your soil with industrious worms. Hatcher tunes it out as he meticulously scrapes yesterday’s whiskers from his face, taking care to trim his graying mustache just right. He dresses in a worn green work shirt with “Hatcher” emblazoned on the pocket, slips on a pair of torn jeans and his steeltoed boots. He puts on an ancient Timex and the shell bracelet his grandson Toby gave him years ago, slips a silver chain with a tiny silver cross around his neck—a gift from Iris—and heads out the door and down the hall to the tiny kitchen where he can hear her puttering around fixing breakfast. All familiar rituals that in no way dampen the crawling anxiety settling over him like a shroud. He sits in a slat chair at the head of the Formica-topped table as Iris pours him a cup of strong, black coffee and lands a peck on his bald spot. She shuffles to the stove and stirs the steaming pan of gravy. Hatcher pours a little coffee in his saucer, blows

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December 2011

on it, then raises the saucer to his lips and sips as he stares out the window. Hanley of the Early Bird Garden Show is gone and AM News takes his place, the reporter rattling on about an accident on Highway 53 involving two school buses, nobody hurt, no need for parents to be concerned. As if that’ll help. Roads will be jampacked with frantic parents tearing off to the scene to check on their kids. Have to take a detour this morning. Hatcher drinks his coffee, his mood darkening as relentless dawn yellows the horizon. Iris brings him his plate, casts him a worried glance. She knows. Methodically, he eats his breakfast, the scrambled eggs perfect, gravy and cat-head biscuits delicious, as usual. Iris gingerly folds her willowy frame into her chair. He can tell her arthritis is bothering her this morning, but she won’t complain. She never does. “…police have given up the search for the missing Tolliver child,” the radio intones, “as family members increase the reward for information on the whereabouts of little Fantasia. More at the noon hour…” Hatcher works on his coffee. He senses Iris watching him, and when she reaches out and gently strokes the back of his hand he’s not surprised. Hatcher knows the contours of her hand as intimately as his own work-

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December 2011

scarred pair. And knows as well that she can sense the darkness welling up within him. “Just a mood,” he says. “A blue funk.” Iris smiles, a sad, knowing smile. “It’s okay, Henry.” “Okay, then,” Henry says. Lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “It’s more than a funk. “ “The miasma?” His silence answers for him. Abruptly, he rises, drains his cup, and grabs his keys from the hook beside the door. “Got to get,” he tells her. “Be late for work.” He gives her a brief hug trying for nonchalant but desperately drinking in the love shining from her eyes. He starts to turn, but she grips his forearms and looks him square in the eye. She raises a hand, and he feels her fingers gently touch the indention in the side of his head. Her finger tips travel downward, tracing the livid scar radiating from the indention, across his right temple, and down his cheek like the tail of a comet. “You’re a good man, Henry,” she says. “Don’t ever think otherwise.” Her words give him the strength to open the door and head out to do what needs to be done. Henry drives his truck slow and careful out Highway 53, radio blaring some asshole car salesman spouting market-speak

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December 2011

about how he can give you a deal on your trade-in to beat the Devil. The miasma rides him like the angel of death on a pale horse. When the miasma is in the saddle, he can’t trust his reactions—or his senses. As his truck approaches the outskirts of the city, the early morning sun streaming through his windshield has a sharpness to it, wields an edged razor that cuts across his eyes. Through squinted eyes, he spots the flashing lights—law enforcement blue, EMT red. The bulk of two yellow buses block one lane. He could wait in line with the other cars while the accident is cleared, since he’s not that late. But he’s feeling antsy and needs to be moving. Hatcher turns left, taking a back road route to the landfill, where he works. His round-about takes him through the heart of the city, and as he passes the alley separating the Inn-Between Deli and the Green Grocer, he finds himself slowing. His eyes flick to the alley. He slows to a crawl, sweat suddenly beading his neck. His heart is pounding, and he stares intently into the shadowed mouth of the alley. Looks just like an alley, narrow and utilitarian, strewn with trash and old boxes. But something is there, he knows. He senses movement— a dark, writhing, unseen presence. Weak now, but gathering strength. Gathering potential. Behind him, a horn blares. He shakes his head and wipes a trembling hand across his face. He gently presses the gas and the

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December 2011

truck eases forward. Potential, he thinks. Can’t dwell on that now. One thing at a time.

He arrives at the landfill, drives through the gate, and parks in his spot next to the cavernous building where dump trucks are already maneuvering, accompanied by their harsh beeping songs, to shed their loads of detritus cast off by the city. He shuts the truck down, gently touches the yellowing photograph of Toby taped to his dash, and slides out. Hatcher notices that the county work detail is already hard at it, spreading the garbage coughed up from the maws of the dump trucks. Even at this hour, the room is kicking, trucks and dozers vying for position. A stench of diesel and curdled milk assails his nostrils as he enters the building and heads for the office to clock in. Maria, the short, fat county deputy in charge of the work detail, meets him at the door. She smiles. “’Morning, handsome,” she says. “You going to ignore me?” “Sorry, ‘Ria. Off my feed this morning.” She scans a clipboard gripped loosely in one meaty hand. “You’re out on Cell C-4 today. Need one of my boys to help out?” “Naw,” Hatcher answered. “Just fill and tamp work. How’s Tillie?” “She’s still knocked up, if that’s what you mean. Gon’ pop

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December 2011

any time now. “ Her smile flashes. “Ever since she found out it’s gonna’ be a girl, she’s about drove me crazy, trying to think up a good name for her.” She laughs, her belly quivering. “That boy going to stand by her?” “He damn well better, he knows what’s good for him. He says so, and I think he will. He’s a good boy deep down. Raised right.” She speaks with a desperate conviction, but Hatcher knows the odds on that—the boy runs with a gang. He elects to stay silent. He clocks in, waves to Maria, and heads out to his dozer. Time to work.

Hatcher rides the dozer out the narrow access road carved through the clay of the landfill, over the finished cells already filled and tamped and slowly digesting their tons of solid waste. Most of these cells are bare, tan earth awaiting grass. A scattering of vent pipes—access to environmental testing wells—dot the surreal landscape like exclamation points. Hatcher tries not to think about all the things under ground here: the trash, garbage, and junk; the rejected refuse from the city fermenting a few feet under his dozer tracks. And other things under the earth. Lost and forgotten, slowly decaying. He shivers, turns up the radio in the dozer’s cab—some right-

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December 2011

wing talking head. “…is off and running. If he wants that second term, he’ll have to own up to the promises he made during the campaign…” Hatcher tops out on the landfill’s artificial plateau and cuts cross-country, heading for the open pit of Cell C-4. He can smell the stench of decaying garbage even though the cab is sealed and air-conditioned. He glances out the window. Seagulls wing lazily over the cell, dipping and rising. Here and there buzzards feed, hopping about with an ungainly gait. Fifty yards away, a mangy dog – or a coyote – works through the mess, seeking a meal. Hatcher stops the dozer, shuts off the engine, and climbs down. He stands on the edge of the pit. The stench is far worse outside the cab, wafting over the lip of the cell like noxious waves from a polluted sea. He covers his nose and mouth with a bandanna, and stares to the far side of Cell C-4. To where Cell C-3, completed two weeks ago, steams in the late-summer heat. There is nothing to differentiate Cell C-3 from the other capped and tapped cells. Just bare, compacted earth, the everpresent vents thrusting up from the earth like the sparse, rotted teeth of a corpse’s jaw. Nothing special about Cell C-3. No indeed. A buzzard wheels around in a long parabolic arc that takes it out and over the cell. As Hatcher watches, the buzzard veers sharply left, away from the empty space, its shrill cry of alarm piercing the air as it speeds away. A few seagulls on final approach to the open garbage smor-

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December 2011

gasbord pass over Cell C-3, but circle wide to avoid the same spot. Hatcher knows that rats also keep away from that place. Coyotes will have nothing to do with it. Even flies won’t stray into that open space. The miasma settles over his shoulders like a wet, clinging blanket. The sun seems to dim. Hatcher squares his shoulders, climbs back into the dozer, and rumbles around the festering open pit to Cell C-3. He stands on the plateau. A soft wind ruffles the sparse hair fringing his bald spot.

He doesn’t want to be here—Lord, take this cup from me but is resigned to it. Has been for some time now. Before him is one of the environmental testing vents required by the EPA. It penetrates through the clay cap into the rotten core of the landfill below. Hatcher stares at it, and slowly it fades out of focus as his mind takes him back over eight years ago. He’s leaving the Dairy Queen. Seven year-old Toby is in the passenger seat beside him, giggling and licking at a soft-serve vanilla cone. Toby is spending the night with his granddad. They’ve just seen their local high school football team whip their rivals and win the region championship, and they’re on their way home. They’re on rain-slick Highway 53 when the SUV comes over the hill on their side of the road, high beams blazing. Blinded, Hatcher hits the brakes, tries to swerve. The SUV swerves, also, but too late. Its front bumper strikes his sedan a glancing blow.

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December 2011

The car looses traction, spins twice, slides at speed into a ditch. Hits a culvert. Flips. Rolls… Hatcher comes to with rain and blood in his eyes. He’s lying in the ditch. The crushed car is on its side, half in the road. He can’t seem to move. Where’s Toby? His eyes twitch, frantically searching. Then he sees the boy, kneeling beside him. The driver of the SUV has turned around and pulled to the shoulder. Spears of harsh light envelop them. Toby is sobbing, hands fluttering over Hatcher like a bird, afraid to touch his broken body. Something passes through the light, and Hatcher’s eyes twitch towards the motion. A man is stumbling towards them, barely able to stand. The SUV driver. Toby, crying. His scalp is bleeding. He’s holding one arm tight against his chest. “My Pawpaw. He’s hurt. Help him, please help him!” The man sways above them. Hatcher smells rain and gasoline mixed with tequila. “Oh my God,” the man says. “Please, help my Pawpaw,” Toby cries. “He’s hurt…” “Wait…wait,” the man stammers. Hatcher sees him glance frantically around. With the light behind him, he can’t make out the man’s features. “Just…wait!” He backs up, lurches around, and stumbles to his SUV. Hatcher hears a door open, then close with a hollow chunk. The man is

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December 2011

coming back, silhouetted by the light. Something long dangles from his right hand. The stem of a car jack. “Help us,” Toby whispers, and the man swings the jack hard. It connects with Toby’s head with a wet smack, driving the boy into the ground. Hatcher tries to scream, but can’t make a sound. The man swings the jack again and Hatcher hears a dull chock from the dark. Then the man is standing over him, breathing heavily, clutching the jack almost protectively across his chest. His face is a featureless black hole in the glare from his SUV’s headlights. “You see…you see…it would be my third strike,” he whispers. He lifts the jack again, hesitates - then brings it down on Hatcher’s head. Hatcher blinks and comes back to himself. He fingers the indented scar in the side of his head. He was in the hospital for three months, in a coma for two. He missed his grandson’s funeral. The man who killed Toby, and tried to kill Hatcher, was never found. Until later.

Hatcher eats his lunch in the air-conditioned office, with Maria looking on disapprovingly. “You look like shit,” she says, and Hatcher can almost agree

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December 2011

with her. The small T.V. on the corner of the work table blares out the news. “…tsunami was thirty feet high, and relentless. It ravaged the village, destroying property and claiming over 150 lives…” “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Maria says. Hatcher shakes his head. “Not sick,” he says. “Just tired. Didn’t sleep so good last night.” “Sure you don’ have something catching?” He attempts a feeble smile. “Not unless insomnia is contagious.” She huffs up like a mother hen. “Maybe I should call Iris…” “Won’t do any good. She doesn’t want me around when I’m like this.” “…been a week since Mary Ellen Lewis, the mother of two, disappeared without a trace,” the radio drones. “Family and friends will hold a candlelight vigil tonight at Faith Baptist Church. Her sister still believes she will be found safe…” Maria leaves him alone. He finishes his sandwich and heads for the door. Just before leaving, he turns back to Maria. “Fantasia. A good name for a baby girl. Name her Fantasia.” He slips out before she can pester him further.

The light is fading as Hatcher spreads a last pile of garbage in

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December 2011

an even layer over already compacted trash. Tomorrow heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll put down a clay seal over this layer, before starting on the next one. He drives the dozer up the slope, around the rim to Cell C-3. Parks the dozer, gets out. Starts walking. He feels the change in the atmosphere when he crosses the boundary of the dead space. A wave of damp cold washes over him. He stands before the vent, shivering in the warm sun. He hugs himself tight. The miasma envelopes him in a dark wave. He tries to swallow, but his mouth seems full of ash. He feels no fear, just an all-encompassing sorrow. The warmth of the late September sun has faded, and when he looks at it, the bright disk seems rimmed with black. When he looks back, he sees the girl. She is a black girl and small, dressed in a yellow sundress. Her feet are bare. She rocks slowly back and forth from heel to toe, her hands behind her back. You must witness, Hatcher thinks. He squints, and another image of the girl flickers over the first. Great gashes cross her body. Her shift is torn and bloody. Blood fills the holes where her eyes used to be. He squeezes his own eyes shut. When he opens them, the girl is gone. His heart races, and sweat slicks his face. He staggers. A darkness settles over him. Tons of clay and garbage, pressing down for

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December 2011

eternity. He falls to his knees before the vent, under the crushing weight of the landfill. He exhales a ragged breath. His heart pounds erratically, and his vision dims. And a voice, dry and wintry, rises from the vent. “Tell him,” the voice says. Hatcher strains to hear over the bellowing of his heart. “There is a heaven…”

He drives though the subdivision, his headlights white-washing the road. He is searching for a specific address number painted on the curb. The houses are clustered close together in this upscale, greenspace community. Not overly expensive, but they surely cost a good bit more than he can afford. As he navigates the surface streets, his eyes search while his mind wanders to the past. He’s out of the hospital, feeble but ambulatory, hobbling with a cane from the steel holding his hip together. His body is healing. But his mind… The miasma comes upon him for the first time three days after he’s released form the hospital, a leaden shadow of harrowing anxiety that threatens to crush his spirit. He tries to hide it from Iris, but she can sense that something is not right. His sleep is filled with nightmare images. Of women, all

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December 2011

strangers, writhing under the assault of brutal men. Little girls being molested, then killed and thrown in dumpsters like so much garbage. Kids snatched from their own neighborhoods by faceless men in dark cars, used savagely, and then murdered out-of-hand. And one bleak, rain-swept day he finds himself standing on the shoulder of Highway 53, sweating and trembling on the spot where Toby had died. Cars whip past, buffeting him, but he hardly notices. His attention is riveted to the concrete culvert. A surge of storm water flows fast along the bottom of the ditch, disappearing into the culvert’s black maw. Hatcher limps closer, not wanting to, but his will is like a leaf caught in the ditch-water current, sucked relentlessly towards darkness. He walks jerkily, then faster, suddenly loosing his balance and falling to his hands and knees, his cane spinning away. He crawls, sobbing softly, eyes locked on the black opening of the culvert. He’s in the ditch now, runoff water soaking his slacks, his shoes ruined. His rain-soaked shirt is plastered to his back, and water streams into his eyes. He can barely see. But he can hear. A voice emanates from the pipe, barely perceptible, brittle and lost and oh so loved. “PawPaw…you must bear witness…”

#eFiction

December 2011

Hatcher glimpses the number from the corner of his eye – 515 Allison Street. He slows, turns into the drive. Kills the engine. Opens the glove box, and slips on a pair of thin leather gloves. He gets out. The night air is crisp this time of year, with fall coming on. Good. He slips on a light windbreaker, knowing it won’t look out of place. He stands beside his car, studying his surroundings. The house is still and quiet. The pale glimmering light of a T.V. filters through the drawn curtains. In the drive sits an old Mustang, patched and primed. A red “For Sale” sign is attached to the windshield. Hatcher limps up the walk, skirting a tricycle turned on its side. He grimaces at the ramifications, but blots them from his mind. On the stoop, he rings the bell. He hears movement, and then the door opens. A thirtysomething man is standing before him, frowning. He’s lanky and thin, dressed in pajama bottoms and a tank top and holding a newspaper. “Help you?” he asks. Hatcher looks him in the eye. Forces a smile. “Paul Jordan?” “Yeah?” “I was visiting a friend and noticed your Mustang. Thought maybe I could look it over?”

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December 2011

The man smiles. “Yeah, sure. Come on in. Let me get a shirt on and we’ll…” Hatcher steps inside, eyes roving. Recliner, couch, coffee table, lamps. No one in the living room. The volume on the T.V. is not loud, but it will do. Somewhere in the depths of the house, he hears the faint sound of a shower running. The man is fumbling into a faded sweat shirt when he pauses. He turns, and stares at Hatcher quizzically. “How’d you know my name?” Hatcher’s right hand slips into his coat pocket as he places his left against the man’s chest and gives a hard shove. Startled, the man staggers. His balance gone, he sprawls heavily on the recliner as Hatcher frees the .22 and brings it up. The man’s eyes widen. “What…” he starts to say, but Hatcher beats him too it. “Fantasia Tolliver says to tell you there is a heaven – and a hell.” He waits just long enough for the man to recognize the name, for the look of horror and understanding to twist his features. Hatcher squeezes the trigger. There’s a sharp pop, the gun jumps a bit, and a neat hole appears just above the man’s right eye. He slumps further, his eyes rolling in his head. Hatcher crosses quickly to him, puts the gun to the man’s temple, and touches off three more rounds. Then he turns and leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

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December 2011

He drives home slowly, the window down, enjoying the cool night air. The miasma is gone. He feels tired, like at the end of a hard day of honest labor. As he drives, he fiddles idly with the radio. “…have any information on the disappearance of Mary Ellen Lewis, please call the city police department at…” What is it about some men, Hatcher muses, that make them victimize the weak? Prey on women and children? How do these animals justify what they do? How can they kill the innocent, cut them up, dispose of the bodies like so much garbage? A vision of the tricycle, on its side next to the walk, flashes through his mind. He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing the image down. Why is it that so many of them have families? Kids and wives of their own? And the neighbors never seem to suspect. He was such a nice man, they say about the few that are caught. Always friendly and helpful. So normal. Who would have thought. He tries to wrap his mind around it, but answers elude him. His thoughts turn to Cell C-3, and what lies buried there. He knows it will rest easy now. He has borne witness. Tomorrow, he’ll disassemble the pistol, take the parts to the landfill, and distribute them over the floor of Cell C-4. Like so many forgotten things, the parts will disappear forever, under

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December 2011

tons of trash. Hatcher yawns, and tightens his grip on the steering wheel. He’ll rest tonight, his first good night’s sleep in over a week. But already he senses shadows coalescing, just at the periphery of awareness. The miasma will return, and he will be unable to resist it. (dark alley, between grocery and deli. A gathering of potential…) Something lost and forgotten, awaiting witness. He thinks about the man - Paul Jordon. And the emptiness he’d glimpsed behind his eyes. Jordon makes nine now, since the one who killed Toby. But that bit about his name – almost made a mistake there. Have to be more careful in the future. He drives on, then abruptly sits up straight and clenches the wheel hard as a thought hits him like an electric shock. Technically, I’m a serial killer. Then, absurdly - I’ll need to get another gun… He drives on, not feeling the tears sliding down his cheeks. At home, in his familiar bedroom, Hatcher lies on the edge of the bed as Iris rubs his shoulders. “Want to talk about it?” she asks. Hatcher is quiet for a moment, but then he sighs. “My father once told me that the measure of a man is not determined by celebrity, or wealth, or fame, but by how well he handles the dirty work. The jobs vital to survival.” He rolls over

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December 2011

and looks at Iris, a quiet anguish in his eyes. “Tell me again, Iris. Am I a good man?” She touches his face, traces his scar, and smiles her gentle smile. “You do God’s work, Henry. The work no one else can do. You bear witness – and take out the garbage.”

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December 2011

The Knight’s Defence Adam Byatt

David carried a sleeping Madeline in his arms, her head nuzzled into his neck as her legs and arms swung limply under his gentle gait. Passing the bundle to his wife he went back to the car for another sleeping child. From the semi-darkness of their bedrooms came mumbled protestations as arms and legs were wrangled into pyjamas. David had almost completed changing Jacob’s nappy when Carla entered with a warmed bottle. “Go and sit down,” she said. “You’ve had a long day after your father’s funeral. I’ll take care of the kids.” As she put her arm around his shoulder he turned to face her; his eyes weary and tired. “Thanks, sweetheart.” In the kitchen he poured a drink; a libation for the dead. “Here’s to you, Dad,” he said, raising the glass as the aroma of scotch wafted like incense. Retiring to his study he switched on the antique bank teller’s lamp letting the light spill into the darkness but not enough to disturb the shadows’ sombre solemnity. Leaning back into his chair he swirled the scotch, the clink of ice cubes mimicking the clock’s mention of time. Turning in his chair he focused his attention on the marble

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December 2011

chessboard set up on the edge of the desk. In the darkness of his office, the chessboard was a photographic negative of ebony and marble squares. The crystal game pieces refracted the light, scattering prisms of rainbows while the ebony figures dully absorbed the light in funereal observance. The pieces were arranged in strategic positions of a game left undecided. In the lamp’s twilight, the battle paused, waiting on a resolution. Wanting for a victorious triumph and a humbled defeat. David selected the black knight from the board, scrutinising the ebony stone. Its coolness took on the warmth of his hand as he turned it over in his palm, rolling it between thumb and forefinger. The knight had always been his preferred piece. It was elegant and refined unlike the stoic rook or surreptitious bishop. A quiet knock at the door and Carla slipped quietly into the room and crouched beside the chair, balancing her hands on the armrest. “How are you? You seem to be holding up well after the wake,” said Carla. Replacing the knight, David put his hand over Carla’s, anchoring himself to her presence. He held fast and spoke the first thought he could articulate. “We never got to finish this game,” he said, more to himself. “Dad took ill soon after we started. We tried to keep it going when he went into hospital. I took in the old plastic set, remember, but he was too sick to play.” David paused, his voice cracking slightly.

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December 2011

“Under this light the pieces look quite beautiful.” “You’re right; it is a beautiful set. Dad was so proud when he gave me this when Jacob was born.” He faltered, sipping at his drink. “Dad had exquisite taste in chess boards. Occasionally we would play with my Simpsons set, just for the fun of it. But now all the pieces look like miniature tombstones marking the graves of the fallen.” Carla squeezed her husband’s hand. David continued. “The only time we ever really connected was over a game of chess. He taught me the rules of the game so that I might understand the role of each piece; their strengths and limitations. I think that was the way he saw life. I got to the point where I could predict his moves and judge his tactics, but in the end I lacked his vision and foresight. I just couldn’t always understand the lesson he was trying to teach.” David placed his forefinger on his king before laying it down in resignation.

#eFiction

December 2011

Take the ‘A’ Train Edward Raso

Barry slapped his hands on his thighs and sighed, ignoring the thin white powder plume as it dissipated and floated slowly back home into his lap. He stood up and walked to the yellow nippled edge of the subway platform and leaned out. He looked once more into the station’s black maw, hoping to see the jittering headlights of a northbound ‘A’ train. What he saw instead was an empty expanse of dull rail and a scurrying rat. His watch read 4:30 A.M. He’d been waiting for over an hour now. The rat stopped right below Barry on the tracks, almost taunting. Barry stomped his foot on the platform, trying to scare the thing away but the rat just twitched its whiskers and began to gnaw on what was either the butt of a cigar or some kind of turd. All of a sudden, Barry felt a hand on his back. He spun around quickly, moving away from the edge of the platform as he did so. “Jesus, you’re jumpy,” a man said, “you could have dropped your bag.” At its mention, Barry held open the MACY’S bag to check on the box inside. The man stood there smirking at him. He had stringy brown hair and a crabgrass beard. His clothes weren’t much more than rags and his construction boots had no laces; their tongues were

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December 2011

flapped over and hung down like they belonged to a pair of exhausted dogs. “Can you help me out with a couple of bucks? ” He asked Barry. “You know, you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that down here.” Barry said. “What, sneak? I wasn’t sneaking, you were just busy trying to show that rat down there who’s boss.” The man picked a half-full plastic soda bottle out of the trashcan next to him and threw it down onto the tracks. It landed a foot away from the rat, which took off in a dun blur. “So what do you say? You got a couple of bucks? Help a guy out?” “Sorry.” Barry said, flatly. “Sorry.” The man repeated. “Yeah. I don’t have any cash on me,” Barry replied. It was true. Between the MetroCard he used for getting around town and the debit/credit card he used for just about everything else, most of Barry’s currency was virtual. It wasn’t unusual for him to go a week between trips to the ATM, especially with all of the fees. Like his ex, Evelyn had said to him once, it was becoming a cashless society, beggars and thieves be damned. The man shuffled over to the bench that Barry had been sitting at and sat down. “Asshole.” He said. “Excuse me?” “You heard me,” said the man. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday--and you don’t even want to know what. You’re just greedy like the rest of them.”

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December 2011

“Hey, I just got off a twelve-hour shift,” Barry said, “I’m tired. This train is an hour late. If I had any cash, I would have helped you out.” The man rubbed his beard and seemed to consider this. His eyes widened and he pointed to the MACY*S bag. “What about that?” he said, “I bet you got something nice in there. What is it, some new crystal? A DVD player? If you really wanted to help, you could just give me whatever’s in the bag.” Stunned by the man’s audacity, Barry wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or scream. His reply came sounding a little bit on the edge of both. “Are you kidding me? This is a present for my daughter. I can’t…I’m not going to just…” “I could sell it. Pro’ly eat for a whole week.” “I’m done with this conversation.” Barry turned and walked away. The man began stomping his feet and thrashing around on the bench. He started chanting loudly, and in a disturbing child-like voice: “Give me the bag! Give me the bag!” Barry walked all the way to the head of the platform, as far away as he could get. He found another bench and sat and continued to wait for the train. The man’s ravings were less threatening now because of the distance, but which distance also gave the words a chilling, ethereal quality as they reverberated throughout the station as if uttered by a lunatic who was both distant and everywhere at once. When the man started adding in bits of singing and flatulent

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December 2011

mouth noises, Barry chuckled, shaking his head and whistling slowly like the sound of an incoming missile. This was not a sane person that he was sharing the station with. Hell’s Kitchen had been both praised and knocked for it’s gentrification in recent years, but Barry knew the neighborhood could still have teeth. The fabric of its pre-dawn AM hours would never truly change; they would always be home to a seediness and danger that simply retreated to Who-Knew-Where once the sky began to lighten, gone but sure to return by night like the urban detritus and sludge on the sidewalks and bilco doors that the shop owners hosed off by dawn. After several minutes, the man’s tantrum began to wind down. After several more, the station was quiet again. Barry looked and was relieved to see that the man had gone. Placing the MACY*S bag in his lap, Barry removed the box from inside. The doll had cost him a small fortune, especially when considering his salary at The Hell’s Kitchen Bakery. He turned the box over in his hands. Its design included an open front for display purposes in which the doll--which was secured in more than a dozen different places with the type of plastic ties that are always twisted closed in complex and sadistic ways-looked out smiling. Written in a manic pink font across the top front of the box: THE OTHER ME! It certainly looked like Kayla, he thought; there was no getting around that. That’s why he had bought it, he supposed. And

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December 2011

although Barry had never actually seen his daughter up close, he knew that the doll bore a good resemblance. Its dirty blond hair was just about the same shade, the little mushroom of a nose, and those eyes--Caribbean Blue just like Kayla’s. Eyes that blue you could see from far away. Like from behind a newspaper from across Madison Square Park, where Kayla went on Saturday afternoons, more interested in chasing pigeons than the swings and slides of the park’s playground. Or from the back pew at the Murray Hill church he’d slip into at the last minute --and then leave before the service was over so that Evelyn wouldn’t spot him. He lived for those secret glimpses into his daughter’s life. He longed also for Evelyn, who, as far as he could tell, still wasn’t seeing anyone seriously. Being a single mother left little time for socializing, no doubt. Barry looked at the doll. The doll looked back. The fact that it was smiling at him despite being bound at the neck, wrists, ankles, and legs was unsettling. THE OTHER ME! A hundred and fifteen dollars. A night’s pay. “She’ll love it,” the checkout girl had said as she slipped Barry’s signed copy of the credit card receipt into the bag (without even asking him if that was where he wanted it--a pet peeve he had decided long ago he’d just better get used to; cashiers would forever do this). “I hope so,” he had replied. But for all Barry knew, Kayla would never even see the doll, had never even seen any of the gifts that he sent. It could be that

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December 2011

Evelyn just threw them away. And so what if she did? Would he really blame her after the horrible thing he had done? Barry thought back to that week almost five years ago when everything changed. He and Evelyn had been dating for almost a year when she had become suddenly and inexplicably distant. Barry was convinced that Evelyn was considering splitting up with him. What else could it be? They had been arguing quite a bit of late. Not about money per se, but rather because of it. The pressure of everyday life being (let’s face it) poor was tough on their relationship. Evelyn didn’t come right out and say it-wouldn’t concede to speaking the words for fear of seeming materialistic--but money was the issue. Of course she was going to break it off. How could she look forward to a future with a man who came home at five A.M. dead tired with flour in his hair and clothes and hardly anything in his wallet? Barry couldn’t remember the last time they ate at a restaurant where your napkin wasn’t thrown away at the end of the meal. New York was a tough city in which to be poor. The lure of opulence was everywhere: unabashed, celebrated. Evelyn had recently gotten a raise at the music publishing company where she worked, but Barry hadn’t seen an increase in his pitiful salary in two years. The evening following their movie outing, Barry was at home in his Washington Heights walk-up trying to numb his brain with some vapid TV magic when the intercom buzzed. “Who is it?” he asked.

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December 2011

“Evelyn,” came the crackled voice through the tiny speaker. Barry buzzed her up and let her in. He asked her if she wanted something to drink. Evelyn shook her head. Sit down, he said, you’re making me nervous. “I have something that I need to tell you.” She replied. So this is it, Barry thought. At least she’s doing it in person. “Do you remember Atlantic City?” Of course he remembered; it was only a few weeks ago. He thought it had been a great weekend. “Something happened.” What? What could have happened that he didn’t know about? They were together practically the entire time--well, except while she went to the bar while he lost at Blackjack. Then Barry remembered. The bartender. Son-of-a-bitch! The one with the stupid ponytail. Only douchebags wore their hair in little ponytails like that. The bartender and Evelyn had been pretty chatty. He even made her laugh a few times. He could have easily gotten her number and Barry would have never known. They had probably been talking ever since. He couldn’t believe it, Evelyn was going to leave him for a douche-bag ponytail bartender who couldn’t even make a decent Mai Tai. As Barry worked all this out in his head, Evelyn stood there looking down at her shoes, fidgeting with her bracelet. “I’m pregnant.” She said finally. In the apartment above them, a piano lesson continued with

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the repetition of a minor scale. Out in the hallway, a couple laughed like only those who had been out drinking and would soon make love laugh. And down on the street, someone was laying into a car horn. But inside Barry’s apartment, there was only the deafening ticking of a wall clock and the diffidence of the moment. “Are…are you sure?” Was what Barry had had said, finally. Evelyn let out a pent up breath. “Yes. I took one of those home tests when I got in last night.” Then added sheepishly, “And another one today.” Awkwardly, tentatively, they embraced. After a few moments in his arms, Evelyn became herself again. And behind a smile that felt as heavy as the news he had just been given, Barry wondered just what in the hell he was going to do. *** It is winter in New York City. Outside, the cold winds swirl in the stochastic patterns dictated by the interruptions of buildings. Plastic bags are swept along sidewalks and caught up in bare-branch trees like little wraiths, perched like the ghosts of the summer’s pigeons and sparrows. Children are pushed around in strollers, enclosed in plastic, on display like mini pontiffs. Women hold down skirts. Lighting cigarettes requires real skill and patience. There is no milling; everywhere, people walk like they mean business.

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December 2011

Inside, at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital: nurses, orderlies, and the occasional doctor pass down the hallways whose floors are scratched and scuffed from decades of use but polished so highly it’s like you could dip a toe in. In room 4C-S--the maternity ward-Evelyn is laboring. She’s never felt so alone in her life. She’s seven centimeters dilated and the doctor--when she occasionally stops in--tells Evelyn she’s in the home stretch. They’ve just turned the epidural down to speed things along and the hand she squeezes through the hell of another contraction is that of a nurse whose shift has just started and this is how they are introduced. Barry had stopped taking Evelyn’s calls two weeks ago and she can no longer kid herself that it’s just a temporary case of cold feet. She is alone. Alone, but not for long. The baby is coming and it’s almost time to push. *** Barry opened his eyes and woke up with the suddenness and confusion of someone who dozes off in a strange place. He stood and stretched. He walked to the edge of the platform to look for the train again. He leaned out, and…did he see something down the tunnel? A glint of light in the distance? A moment later, he was sure that he had. The train! The train was coming and he’d be home in no time. The first thing he’d do when he got home would be to grab a slice of pizza from the refrigerator and eat it right there in the kitchen, cold and delicious. His stomach

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December 2011

growled at just the thought. Then he’d strip off his flour crusted clothes and fall into bed and finally sleep--blessed sleep. When he woke, instead of sending the doll to Kayla through the mail, maybe he’d just call Evelyn and ask if he could stop by to deliver it in person. Who knows? Maybe she’d agree. Maybe he’d get to finally meet his daughter. And then after that? Barry felt hopeful. The train was closer. It looked to be stopped at 34th street, one station away. Its impending arrival had done much for Barry’s mood. It no longer felt like the lonely small hours of a Saturday morning; the station itself looked brighter, felt less dank, Barry perked up even to the point of olfactory hallucination, he figured, as he briefly caught the hint of a scent, bright and clean like a men’s cologne. Down at 34th, the train was on the move. Then, for the second time, there was a hand at Barry’s back. This time he wasn’t surprised. As a matter of fact, as soon as he felt it, he realized that he had been almost expecting it. Up rose a quick flash of anger. He had had enough. Crazy or not, he wasn’t going to let this man harass him. But before he could turn around, Barry realized that the hand wasn’t merely trying for his attention. The hand was pushing. OH GOD IT WAS PUSHING. Still on the platform’s edge, he was caught off-balance. And before Barry could right himself, he was falling over, arms windmilling, Kayla’s doll flying somewhere. Barry fell awkwardly onto the tracks, striking the side of his head on a rail. He fought off

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unconsciousness that would have meant death for sure. He scrambled to his feet. The train was pulling in at the end of station. Its horn screamed and its headlights pulsed urgently. It rumbled loudly, full of testosterone. Barry looked for escape options. He looked first to the other side of the tracks but there was a barrier he’d never get over in time. Plus there was the third rail to navigate. He looked underneath the platform, hoping to find a space to crawl into. There was none. His only chance was back up onto it. It was high, but he could reach it. Actually pulling himself up, however, that was a different story. He hadn’t done so much as a chin-up since high school. Barry took a quick glance to his right. The train was so close now that he could see the operator’s terrified expression as he frantically worked the controls. Barry could feel the train’s weight on the hot breeze preceding it. He grabbed the platform’s edge and began to pull up. (so close now) His hands slipped off. He got a better grip and pulled up again. (so close…soclosesoclose) Barry was able to hoist himself waist-high to the platform and felt a split second of relief as he leaned forward to pull himself over. But then the train was on him. It mashed his lower body into the impossibly small space between it and the platform, dragging Barry along and twisting him at the pelvis. And if that train had not been such a loudly bellowing beast, surely you would have heard the awful, gurgling trills and cries coming from deep in

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December 2011

Barry’s throat. The pain was astounding. There was no give, just mindless, violent inertia sweeping him along the platform’s edge. Mercifully, the bones in his lower spinal column gave, impinging on his spinal cord, and then he could feel nothing more of it. When it was over, Barry was still alive and conscious, pinned at the waist between the train and the platform. He could not see the mangled mess of his body below or how his feet were pointing the wrong way. One of the train’s doors opened and a conductor came running out. “Holy shit!” he said. “I think I’m hurt pretty bad.” Barry replied, feeling nothing but the unreality of the situation. “Just hold on, man, we’ll radio for paramedics.” The conductor ran back on the train. There was some sort of announcement on the train’s PA and the passengers clamored to the windows on the platform’s side to look out. The conductor came back out and squatted on his haunches next to Barry. “What were you doing on the tracks, my friend?” “Somebody pushed me.” “Son of a bitch. “...” What’s your name?” “Bar..” Barry coughed blood, at which the conductor visibly flinched. “Barry Cordell.” “My name’s Jerome. I’m not going to bullshit you, Barry.

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December 2011

There’s no time for that. This is bad. You got somebody we can call, somebody close by to come be with you for the next little while?” “Yes.” *** Kayla, This is the first entry in a journal that I will never get to see you read. The plan is to record the big moments in your life as I see them, and then leave this book to you after I’m gone. I’ve decided finally to stop messing around and go and see a lawyer about a will. I’m a young woman but I realize now how unexpectedly our last hour can come upon us. I’m sure your dad never thought his would come rushing towards him like it did the other night. That’s what I wanted this first entry to be about: the night you met your dad. I’m putting it down on paper while the details are clear and fresh in my mind, before time and memory have their anesthetic way with them. As painful as it is to tell, you deserve that much. Your dad’s memory does. You’re here with me right now in the living room, by the way. You’re brushing Mia’s hair and singing softly to her, getting her ready for bed. Do you remember Mia? I would bet that you do. Mia is your doll, a beautiful present from your father. He sent you many presents before her, but I’m sad to say that I never

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December 2011

gave them to you. As soon as they came, I donated them to charity. We were estranged for a time, your dad and I. But that was between him and me, and I’ll say right now all that really needs to be said about it: I never stopped loving him. And I know that your dad never stopped loving me. And you as well, my child: he died loving you too. It happened a month ago, a few days before your fourth birthday. The phone rang early, waking me up. It was still dark outside. The man on the other end of the line told me there had been an accident at the 42nd street subway station. Your dad had fallen onto the tracks and was hit by an ‘A’ train on his way home from work. He was injured horribly but he was conscious and still holding on. When they asked him if he had any family close by, he told them to call me. Of course I would come, I said. The man on the phone said to hurry and I said I would get a cab and be there in just a few minutes. I’m not going to tell you that I had some noble or grandiose idea of taking you with me in the hopes that you could meet your father before he died. I took you simply because there was no other choice. I couldn’t leave you home by yourself, and there was no time to drop you with anyone. So after I quickly dressed, I went into your room and threw a coat over your pajamas and slipped on your shoes and rushed us out of the apartment while you were still basically asleep. As luck would have it, a taxi was dropping someone off in front of our building as we exited the lobby’s front door, you in my arms and me leading our way out

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December 2011

with my hip. I got us into the cab and told the driver to hurry. You never have to tell a New York City cab driver to hurry, but I told him anyway. We got to 44th street and 9th avenue in just a couple of minutes. There were emergency vehicles parked all around the intersection whose flashing lights made a kaleidoscope out of the dark inside of our cab. As I paid the driver, you woke up wondering where we were and just what on earth was going on. I told you I would explain later and we got out of the taxi and went over to the subway’s entrance. A cop was putting up yellow police tape. Mam, he said, you can’t go down there. The station’s closed. I’m Evelyn Pelton. I was told my...I was told Barry Cordell is down there. Hold on, he said. He took the radio from his hip. Yeah, I’ve got the vic’s family here. Over. <I’ll send somebody up.> There’s someone on their way to speak with you, mam. A minute later, a paramedic came up the subway steps, taking them two at a time. Is he still…how is he? The paramedic looked at you nervously and then back at me. Ms. Pelton, perhaps the officer can watch your daughter for a moment while we have a word? Honey, stay here with the policeman for just a minute, ok? I’ll be right over there talking.

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December 2011

The officer smiled pleasantly at you. He was young, like right out of the academy young. I could tell he hadn’t logged many hours as a city cop; his uniform looked brand new; he was fresh and alert. From where I was standing I could smell the crisp scent of his aftershave and I remember wondering how long it would be before the city wore him down, how long before the haggard cracks of experience began to show in his youth’s armor, before his uniform looked less crisp and he stopped bothering with the cologne? The officer said something reassuring, but it was his smile that won you over. You stayed with him happily as I stepped away to talk to the paramedic. The paramedic took a breath, unsure, it seemed, how to begin the conversation. Please just tell me, I said. I know it’s bad. All right. Barry’s lower extremities have been crushed. His insides are twisted. He’s stuck between the train and the platform. Between the…how can he even…oh god. It’s the subway car itself that’s holding him together right now. We’ve seen this before. It happens from time to time. When we move the train--and we have to move it, Ms. Pelton, I’m sorry-well, then nothing will be holding him together. Although he might not even make it that long. I remember the paramedic steadying me then. I thought I had prepared myself for such news during the cab ride, but hearing it put like that was almost too much. When my head cleared, I

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asked if I could go see him. Of course, the paramedic said, he’s been asking for you. If it helps any, he’s not in pain; he can’t feel anything from the waist down. I thanked him and went back over to you and took you by the hand. We ducked under the police tape and down we went to see your father. Once in the station, we followed a central corridor to another set of stairs. Those took us down another level to the platform. We walked tentatively up along the side of the train. And there he was. Your father was pale, but as they said, conscious. From the waist up--where we could see him-he didn’t look like someone who had been struck by a train. As a matter of fact, the horror of the situation didn’t occur to you at all, and you said, Mommy, is that man stuck? Your father’s eyes brightened hearing your voice, and it was he who answered you. That’s right, sweetheart. I got stuck down here waiting for this train. Are they going to get you out? Yes. They’re going to have to get me out pretty soon. That’s good. I bet it’s no fun to be stuck. No, it’s not. Are you a friend of Mommy’s? Yes, Kayla. Your mother and I are old friends. As a matter of fact, she told me that you have a birthday coming up.

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December 2011

You got excited as children do whenever the subject of their impending birthday is brought up. I’m going to be FOUR! You said, and held up the fingers to prove it. One of the things about your father that I fell in love with was his smile. When he smiled, his entire face got in on it. His eyes would get bigger, his cheekbones jutted out, and his forehead crinkled up where it had been smooth only a moment before. Your dad smiled like that then—and I’m glad that you two were too enthralled with each other to notice the tears rolling down my cheeks. It would have been a terrible thing to sour the moment with them. You were transfixed by this man jutting impossibly out of the platform, just as he was with you, like a father studying the alien but familiar face of his newborn. The two of you spoke for a few minutes. Mostly he would ask you questions about yourself, which you happily answered. There were more smiles, another laugh or two. At one point he looked at me and mouthed the words: Thank you. But now comes the hard part. Your father’s breathing became labored. He had an urgent look on his face and he called me over. You backed away, starting to cry. I got down next to him and put my head close to his. Two paramedics who had respectfully given us a little space now rushed over and tried to help your dad as he continued to struggle for breath, but there was nothing that they could do. He was dying. The paramedics told me back up. Before I did, I

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kissed him hard on the lips. He managed a brave smile, and then his breathing got heavier and heavier until every exhalation came as a forced grunt, something he bore down on. It’s happening, I thought. I wouldn’t let you see it. You cried louder as I took you away, and I yelled out to your father that I loved him. Both of us sobbing, we climbed the gritty concrete steps and left him down there to die. Back up on the street, I found out that it had become a homicide investigation. Two detectives asked me some simple preliminary questions, just starting their investigation. They were kind enough to let me go home and get my head together for a few hours before they came to interview me at length. Then, as I was looking for a taxi to take us back home, the young cop came jogging over. He was carrying a Macy’s shopping bag. I found this in a trashcan around the corner. He opened up the bag and pulled out a box. It was Mia. Mom, you said, Another Me! That’s the one from the commercials. A doll? I’m sorry officer, I don’t understand. He took out the receipt and showed it to me. It had your dad’s signature on it. Do you know why Mr. Corell might have purchased this doll? Was it for your daughter? I’m not sure. We weren’t speaking. I mean, he knew her birth-

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day was coming up, so maybe. The officer put Mia back into the bag and knelt down beside you. Tell you what, young lady. I’ve got a feeling this is a present for you. I have to take it away for a little while to look for clues, but when we’re all done with it, I’ll make sure it gets to you. Deal? Deal. He rubbed the top of your head and smiled at you and turned and walked back into the busy crowd of uniforms. We went home and although I couldn’t sleep, I let you crawl into my bed with me for a couple of hours while you did. The detectives came that afternoon with word that they had already arrested and charged a homeless man for the murder. He was known to the police and to the residents of Hell’s Kitchen to be a schizophrenic. He had a history of harassment. They told me that this man would never be deemed fit for trial, and they were right. He is in a hospital undergoing treatment and despite overwhelming evidence, denies pushing your father onto the tracks. I hope he never gets out. This world can be a pretty terrible place sometimes. I even heard today that they’re investigating some copycat murder at a subway station down in the West Village. A woman commuter this time. My god. Well Kayla, that’s the story. It’s getting late and I’ll close for now. You’ve just put your doll to bed and it’s my turn to do the same to you. We’re going to be ok, I think. This is a tough time for me,

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and even though I’d like to believe that I’ve filtered most of the bad stuff out, I’m sure it hasn’t been an easy time for you either. I look forward to our life together and recording some of it in this journal. But now that I’m gone, perhaps you realize something that I’ve learned since losing your dad: the lover may be absent, but the love lingers on. Please say hello to Mia for me if she’s still around.

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December 2011

The Dead Beat

Erica Lindquist & Aron Christensen Episode Four

Jackson leaned on his shovel. This job used to be so easy. He had been a young man in those first days, before the ghosts appeared and changed everything. Used to be that all he had to do was dig the graves. It was back-breaking work, but it was simple work. The dead never complained. They just slept in silence. We all got to rest in peace. Not anymore. The graveyards were thin places between the Light and the Dark. They were busy places, especially at night. Not just loved ones coming to mourn anymore, widows and grandchildren who wanted a quiet moment with the memories. Now the living and the dead came and went every day, every night. Half-formed shapes slid between the tombstones, pale silhouettes like shadows in reverse. The ghosts. A man in a stark, smart black suit appeared out of the darkness. He stepped into the yellow circle of lamplight and waved. “Thanks, Jackson,” the lawyer said. “We’re all done here.” The gravedigger didn’t answer right away. He took a bent cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Used to be that a shotgun was enough to keep the robbers and looters away. Now they came in

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nice suits, carrying briefcases full of contracts. Instead of wedding rings and gold teeth, this new breed of grave robber left the graveyard with signatures of blood and seals of black wax. Stealing life, stealing bodies to give away to the dead. The dead should stay dead. “Sure, I’ll pack everything up,” said Jackson. “How did it go?” Jackson knew this one – Zarien Brown, a junior partner at one of the firms across the street from the graveyard. The lawyer grinned. His teeth were very white, the same pearly pale as the moon. “First-time host. He was a little nervous at the idea of being puppet to a boxer. He can’t get sick, but bones still break and it made the kid a little nervous.” “Boxer? Must be Jimmy Costa, over in row twenty-eight. He had a hell of a career. Great fighter.” “That’s the one. He never gave it up. Now Costa wants someone young, fit and the right size to keep fighting lightweight. The money is going to be great.” “Of which you’ll be taking a cut,” Jackson said sourly. “Hey, we all need to eat,” Zarien answered lightly. “We all need to die, too.” And stay dead. The lawyer’s brow furrowed and he gave Jackson a speculative look. “Hey, have you ever offered up your body? At your age, you’ve got to at least be considering it.” “Nope. Never have.” “You sure, Jackson? It’s a good deal. You won’t get any older while you’re hosting. You’ll make some money and I can have

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December 2011

it invested for you. A nice little retirement fund when you wake up. Maybe we’ll even be out of this damned recession by then.” “Not interested, Zarien,” said the gravedigger. He shifted his weight against the shovel. It grated unpleasantly in the rocky earth. A pale, half-formed shape glided past. Zarien inclined his head to the ghost. “Evening, Kore.” He looked back to Jackson. “What about when you die?” “No.” “Come on, really? Just one stint as a puppet doubles your chances in the Dark. You don’t want to be lost out there, do you? Just… gone?” Jackson’s grip tightened around the handle of his shovel. “The dead should stay dead, Zarien. Stay quiet and still. I don’t want to come back.” The lawyer blinked, shocked. “What? Seriously?” “No. No one should come back. It’s not natural. The dead should stay dead.” “You’re a crazy old coot, Jackson,” Zarien said, shaking his head. The old gravedigger looked up at the lawyer. “You ever been a puppet?” “Not yet. I’ve only been a partner for a couple of years. When I get a few more behind the desk, I’ll start looking at my own options” Zarien told Jackson. “So you couldn’t find your way out of the Dark.”

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December 2011

“Probably not, and certainly not for a few decades. But I’m not heading there just yet. I’ll be ready, when the time comes.” He smiled a shiny lawyer’s smile and hefted his briefcase. “Well, I better get back to the office and file these so Costa can start training tomorrow.” Zarien waved a farewell to the gravedigger and turned to make his way back through the tombstones. Back to his office, back to his coffinwood desk to make more contracts that gave the living away to the dead… It wasn’t right. “The dead should stay dead,” Jackson said quietly. He raised the shovel up over his head and smashed it down over Zarien Brown’s head. The lawyer crumpled in the grass, into a spreading puddle of his own blood. All around Jackson, the damned ghosts wailed and moaned in horror. “The dead should stay dead!” Jackson screamed. *** The phone rang. Through the muddy multicolor of his dreams, Arphallo could not immediately identify the sound. It wasn’t his cell phone, with his ringtone set to a looping clip of Claire de Lune. He sat up and looked around the bedroom. His cell phone was still on the ornately carved bed stand, sitting dark and silent. The phone rang again. It was the house phone, a bulky antique with a yellowing ivory handle. He picked up the heavy receiver.

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“Arphallo, it’s your grandfather.” “Yes, I know. You’re the only one who calls this number, Grandpa,” Arphallo said into the receiver. “Good morning.” “How are you, Arphallo?” He picked up the much smaller cell phone and squeezed a button on the side. The face display lit up with the time. “Tired. It’s six in the morning.” “Sorry, my boy. When you don’t sleep, it can get a little hard to keep track of the time. Should I call back later?” “No, it’s fine. It’s about time to get ready for work, anyway.” Arphallo climbed out of the deep, wide bed and managed about two steps towards the closet before the cloth-wrapped phone cord jerked him to a stop. The exorcist reached for the closet door, but it was still at least six feet away. How did anyone manage before cell phones? Arphallo picked up the cradle and carried it across the darkened bedroom to see how much more distance he could get out of the wall cord. Almost… He could just brush his fingers against the brass doorknob. “How is work, Arphallo?” his grandfather asked. “Have you gotten a raise yet?” “Good. No. Um… Work’s fine. Last week, we helped OC bring in one of the local bosses. The trial starts next month. The guy is going to get off – the prosecutor doesn’t have quite enough evidence to make it stick – but not before the press rips him apart. He’s never going to work in this city again.” “That’s nice, but isn’t it a little beneath your calling? You’re

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one of the most talented occultists I’ve ever seen.” Grandfather Kenneth’s voice sounded small and tinny over the phone, so little like the strong tenor that had taught and nurtured a younger Arphallo’s interest in Dark arts. “You should be running that whole department.” “I know, Grandpa. Thanks for the confidence.” Arphallo pulled his ear away from the phone just long enough to open the closet. All of the clothes inside were black, close enough in hue and weave to match. He grabbed the nearest pair of pants and a shirt. “How’s that partner of yours, my boy?” “He’s good, I guess. I don’t really know.” Arphallo pulled on his pants and wedged the phone between his head and shoulder as he buttoned them closed. The aged ivory slipped and he had to reposition the receiver a few times before continuing. “You can never really tell with Sam. It’s hard to read him. He always says he’s fine, but sometimes I wonder if that’s just Sam being professional.” “Sam Trent is a solid man. You could use to be a little more professional like that. Make some friends, Arphallo. You’ll need them down the road.” “Sam’s my friend,” Arphallo said defensively. He slid his shirt around his shoulders – carefully to avoid dislodging the phone again – and buttoned it up under his chin. Arphallo caught his reflection in the dark gray mirror over the dresser and sighed. He looked more like a mortician than a cop.

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At least it took only a moment and a few fingers combed through his short brown hair to bring it close enough to order. “Do you even know the name of his host?” Grandfather Kenneth asked. “It’s… A something. Maybe Alex or Axterion or Armand.” On the other end of the line, his grandfather sighed. “You’ve got to take more time for yourself. Don’t work so damned hard.” “I thought you said to spend more time making friends.” “Arphallo, you know seven hundred uses for silver, but you don’t know your partner’s whole name. You’ve got to spend time doing the right kind of work.” “Sure, I will.” Arphallo checked his cell phone again. “I have to get going, Grandpa. I’ll call you tonight.” “Be safe, my boy. I don’t want you joining us stiffs any time soon.” “I won’t, Grandpa. Take good care of Mom. I love you all.” “Love you, too. Goodbye, Arphallo.” “Bye, Grandpa.” Arphallo hung up the phone and grabbed his pentagram PE badge, wallet and keys from the nightstand. His coat was still on the floor, dropped there last night as its owner stumbled into bed. Arphallo pulled it back on, checked that his kit was still in the pocket, and grabbed his cell phone. It rang in his hand. Claire de Lune. “Hey, Sam,” Arphallo answered. “How do you always know, Arph?”

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December 2011

“Caller ID, Sam.” On his end, Sam laughed. “Right. That wasn’t around when I was breathing. Where are you now?” Arphallo was jogging down the wide, curving stairs. It was still dark inside the house. Sheets were draped over the statues and the piano in the foyer, turning them into caricatures of the ghosts that were Arphallo’s trade. “I’m just heading out to the car,” he answered. “When you get to the precinct, don’t come up to the office,” Sam said. “Okay. Where am I going instead?” “Meet me down in psychomantium three. I need you to tell me something about a skinrider.” “I’ll be right there.” Arphallo stepped over the weeds growing up through a crack in the stairs outside. His car sat in the shade of the aging mansion, a shiny and modern black convertible all surrounded by old gray shadows. Arphallo fished his keys from his pocket and dropped down into driver’s seat to make the trip into the city. After parking in the gated lot outside the police station, Arphallo went inside and rode the elevator down. As promised, Lieutenant Sam Trent was waiting for him in the precinct basement, in the hallway that led to the psychomantiums. The palehaired cop leaned against a concrete wall with arms crossed over his chest, talking quietly to another exorcist. Sam looked up when he heard footsteps. The other exorcist smiled at Arphallo

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and excused herself. “Morning, Arph,” Sam said. “What’s going on today?” Arphallo asked. “What are we doing down here? You hate the mirror room.” “It crosses up my eyes,” Sam agreed. “But I need you to take a look at this.” He opened a heavy door, painted with a large 3, and then followed Arphallo inside. The room was not large, about the size of an autopsy bay. The analogy was no accident – there was a gurney in the center, the body on top covered by a white sheet. An imitation ghost, just like the piano in the foyer, Arphallo could not help thinking. The walls of the psychomantium were covered from floor to ceiling by old-fashioned, silver-back mirrors. They filled the room with a faint, metallic smell that Arphallo could only describe as blue. The mirrors threw back his reflection, clear and crisp and all in undertaker-black. But Sam was out of focus. There was another shape superimposed over the other cop’s lean silhouette – a little shorter and thicker, skin and hair a shade darker. The dead man in the mirror was much older than his puppet and the center of his chest was stained in a rust-colored blur. Blood? Arphallo squinted at the ghost in the mirrors. It was cloudy and hard to make out. Was that Sam? The real Sam Trent? Arphallo remembered his grandfather’s words earlier that morning. How much did he really know about his own partner?

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“So what’s this?” Arphallo asked. “Little present from Hastings in homicide,” said Sam. “Is it related to that lawyer they found in the graveyard?” “No. They closed that one inside twenty-four hours. Some graveyard staffer who – get this – hates ghosts. And anyone who deals with them, apparently.” Arphallo gave his partner a surprised look. “I don’t understand the living sometimes. What do we actually have here, then?” “Fresh body. They found him in a dumpster out behind a furniture store. Xavan-Carver test came up positive.” “So someone was skinriding this guy when he died.” “Yeah, and they need to know who.” Arphallo peeled back a corner of the sheet to take a look at the body beneath. It was a man, a little older than he was, but Arphallo could not tell much else. The victim’s face was gone. In its place was a huge, ragged red crater. The medical examiner had done a good job cleaning the wound, but the raw, slaughterhouse sight still made Arphallo’s stomach clench uneasily. “That’s the exit wound. He was shot, execution-style, in the back of the skull,” Sam said. “Who was he?” Arphallo asked. “What do we know about him?” “Lucian Fletcher. No dentals, of course.” Sam gestured to the toothpick-sized shards of bone, all that remained of the jaw. “But his fingerprints turned up a match. Fletcher spent five years in prison for dealing heroin. Got out about six months ago.”

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“Any enemies? Drug dealers don’t always get along with their clients.” “Sammy and Hastings are looking into that, Arph. But what they need from you is ID on the ghost who was running around in his skin,” Sam told him. “No contract on file?” Arphallo asked. All possessions and terms were supposed to be recorded and available to law enforcement, if they could get the warrant signed. “Nope. Fletcher was street meat. His deal was a black market, off-record contract.” Arphallo nodded and folded the sheet back to the corpse’s waist. From a vial, he dabbed spicy-smelling dhidin oil on the stitched Y-incision, just over the dead man’s heart. Arphallo stopped, uncertain, with his hand hovering over the hollowed remains of the body’s head. “This is supposed to go on his eyes,” he said. “Make your best guess, Arph. The MEs already took everything they need.” Arphallo nodded. He pulled on a pair of gloves from a blue cardboard box on the gurney’s shelf. Trying not to wince, Arphallo reached into the broken remains of the dead man’s head and applied a dot of the oil approximately where the back of his eyes would have been. Arphallo pulled the gloves off and dabbed a last dot of oil in the center of his own forehead, on the spot that some cultures called the third eye. He closed his own eyes and held his hands

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out flat to either side, as though balancing plates on them. He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, letting his mind go blank, just as his teachers had told him to. It was always hard, this part. Things came to him, wormed their way into the exorcist’s thoughts: a sound like singing, too distant to make out the words; faces and smells of baking, of home. Arphallo covered it all in an image of black ice, deep and cold and still. When all was quiet, he let the ice melt away. And then… Blank. Nothing. Into the Dark… “You’ve got it, Arph,” Sam said suddenly. Arphallo opened his eyes. He was sweating. How long had it taken? It was hard to guess, but teachers had told him later that it sometimes took more than an hour of concentration. Arphallo resisted the urge to check his phone for the time. Instead, he looked up at the mirrors. There was a new shape reflected in them, the shadow-form of a man. Unlike Sam’s phantom, which led his tall puppet’s every movement, this one lay in the empty air a few feet from the murdered body below. It was still as a photograph. Sam walked over to one of the mirrors, examining the reflection closely. “It’s a little blurred,” he commented. “Sorry. I probably didn’t put the dhidin down quite right.” “That’s fine, Arph. It looks good, considering.” “Anyone you know, Sam?” Arphallo asked. “Nope, but I’ll get the photographers down here in a minute

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and send the pictures around,” Sam said. He traced the sagging lines of the ghost’s body. “Looks like we’ve got an older guy here.” Arphallo went to his partner’s side to examine the image. It was blurred, as Sam said, but he could make out a few details. The edges of the silvery monochrome shadow were duller, darker – the sign of one who had died late in life, often of a lingering disease or cancer. The face was lined, with a receding hairline, though the hair itself was still dark. “Look at the eyes,” Sam said. Arphallo looked. They were blank black as coals. Arphallo frowned. He had seen such eyes only a few times. “This wasn’t his first death.” “Technically, it would have been his second, in any case,” Sam corrected. “Have you ever been in a body when it died?” Arphallo asked, curious. “No, but I’ve known ghosts who have. It’s just as bad as the first time, they say. Every single time you die, your spirit might not be strong enough to make it through. It’s risky.” “But this guy’s died repeatedly,” said Arphallo. “Let’s get an ID on him and find out why.” *** Detective Hastings had an answer for them the next morning. Despite the clear blue May sky outside the windows, Verso

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Hastings wore a bright green tie with a red felt reindeer and a brass bell hanging from the end. He charged into the office, tie chiming, with a cardboard tray of steaming coffees in one hand and a folder in the other. Hastings dropped into the chair next to Sam’s desk and held out the tray. “Good morning. I brought coffee,” he said. “Latte for you, Sirus.” Arphallo took the cup in closest to him, the one with a large L written on the top in black ink. Hastings took the one next to it and offered it to Sam. “Straight up for you, Trent,” Hastings announced. Sam accepted the coffee with a slightly strained smile. Hastings nodded and took another white paper cup. It smelled like mocha. There was one more coffee in the tray. Hastings noticed Arphallo looking at it. “That one’s for Sammy, Exorcist Sirus,” said the homicide detective, referring to his young partner. The one named after Sam Trent. “Is she coming down?” Arphallo asked. “She better not,” Hastings said. “She’s up in one of the interview rooms, taking a nap. Sammy spent most of last night getting this together.” He opened the folder and pushed it across the desk to Sam, who looked over the papers and photographs inside. Arphallo recognized the first picture, taken in the psychomantium yesterday morning. Sam’s blond brows shot up and his brow furrowed.

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“Sammy got us a positive identification on the poor dead fellow,” he told Arphallo. “The ghost using Lucian Fletcher’s body was Vance Roth. Died at age eighty-seven. Roth had a bad heart. He was in and out of hospitals all over the country getting it worked on, but it killed him in the end.” “That must have been expensive,” Arphallo said. “The surgeries, I mean, not the dying.” “It was.” Hastings put his coffee down and pulled a page from the case file. “Roth blew through almost two million. But he could afford it. The man had a lot of money.” “What’s a man like that doing buying a sleazy off-record body?” Sam wondered. “I’m not sure, but Vance Roth was loaded, worth somewhere in the vicinity of twenty million.” “That’s a big estate. Who’s in control of it now?” asked Sam. “His kids. Three daughters, all by different mothers.” Hastings consulted another page. “But only until Roth comes back from the Darkness. Then control reverts back to him.” “If he comes back at all,” Arphallo said. Vance Roth had come back to the Light, to the living world, only to die again. And again. Often enough to turn his eyes jet black. “Roth’s been doing something since he died. Something that keeps getting him killed.” “That may be.” Sam had drunk none of his coffee. He held it in one pale, long-fingered hand as he leafed through Samantha Lefevre’s report. “Roth’s been dead for about five years now. He’s

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had other hosts, at least two others before Fletcher.” “More street deals?” “No, legit contracts and good ones. Roth’s estate had the money to buy full time skins,” Sam read. “Nice deals, too.” “Was Roth doing anything with them? Did he go back to work? Maybe he had something to finish,” Arphallo suggested. “Roth had long since retired when he died and if he was up to anything, it was strictly off the record. He seems to have lived a quiet – if rich – life,” Sam said. He pushed a page across the desk to Arphallo. The younger exorcist looked over it. “But both of the previous hosts are dead, killed while Roth was skinriding. The first host died in a car accident. There wasn’t much of an investigation.” “The second one was stabbed three years ago,” said Hastings. “But they caught the guy who did it. Gareth Mann is currently serving a life sentence in prison for the murder. At the trial, he tried to plead out. He told the judge that someone paid him to kill Roth, but the prosecution wasn’t buying it.” “Why not?” Arphallo asked.” “Mann had motive. He used to work for Roth, when the old man was still alive. Roth fired him. The prosecuting lawyer said that Mann’s marriage fell apart after that and without a job, his wife got custody of their daughters. Mann confessed to committing the murder of Roth’s host body, but could never point a finger at his supposed accomplice. Mann went away for life.” “And now Roth’s been killed a third time,” Sam said specu-

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latively. “You think he’s just that unlucky?” “Not a chance,” Hastings replied. “When we look into that car wreck, I think we’re going to find signs of sabotage. All three were murders.” “You think it might be Mann again?” Arphallo asked. “I don’t know, but we should talk to him.” Hastings scribbled the name and Mann’s prisoner number on a pad of lined paper. “But the best witness would be the ghost himself. Sirus, do you think you could get Roth in here to answer a few questions?” “Maybe,” Arphallo said, shaking his head. “It’ll be a few days before he comes close enough to the Light for me to get through… if he comes back at all. Roth has died at least three times in the last few years. That’s hard on a soul.” “We’ll talk to him as soon as possible,” Sam told Hastings. “Sure. In the meantime, I’ve got some other thoughts,” said the homicide detective. “Roth comes back from the Darkness twice with proper contracts, with good hosts, but they both die, one murdered for certain and another one that might not have been an accident. So what happened? Why change the habit?” “Maybe Roth was getting tired of dying, so he’s going off the grid. He makes his next deal with Fletcher, our petty crook,” said Sam. He put down his coffee and spread his hands. “No paper trail, few witnesses. Maybe Roth was trying to avoid getting killed again.” “That suggests that Roth knew he might be murdered again,” Arphallo pointed out. “Moreover, it means he knew that Mann

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wasn’t the problem.” “How do you figure?” Sam asked. “Well, with Mann in prison, Roth wouldn’t have anything to worry about, would he? Why buy up a risky street contract unless he’s still afraid? But that raises another question. If Roth knew someone was murdering him and knew it wasn’t Mann, why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he call the police or at least speak up during Mann’s trial?” Sam and Hastings exchanged a look. Arphallo could see the gears turning as the older cops considered the question. “Maybe Roth bought Mann’s line about an accomplice. Maybe he’s being paranoid, trying to lay low even though his killer is locked up,” Sam suggested. “I don’t think so,” Hastings answered. “If he’s being paranoid, why not come to us? Why not get protection, further investigation? Unless Roth thinks the police can’t help…” Arphallo flipped through the case file again and shook his head. “I don’t see anything in here like bad blood between Roth and any police officers. No connections to organized crime. Like you said, Roth lived a quiet life.” “Wait, what about his lawyer?” Hastings asked suddenly. “He’s making a tidy sum every time Roth has to sign a new deal. What’s the lawyer’s name?” “Diapholese Kane,” Arphallo told them. “I’ve heard of Kane,” said Sam. “He’s a big name in the Dark circles, a long-time player. He handles a lot of big contracts.”

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“Makes sense for a rich man like Vance Roth to hire someone like Kane. But what if Kane started getting too greedy? He starts killing Roth off so his wealthy client has to sign new puppets. Every time, Kane makes a nice big bonus.” Sam whistled. “If that’s the case, I can understand why Roth wouldn’t say anything. I wouldn’t want to challenge Kane. The guy would be a dangerous enemy and he’s practically untouchable.” “So maybe Roth had to find another way,” Arphallo said. “What if that’s what the new puppet, Fletcher, is for? A skinriding deal that his lawyer doesn’t have any stake in.” “But Kane is connected. He finds out what Roth is up to,” Hastings said, running with the theory. “Then what? Kane kills Roth again? What does he gain this time?” asked Sam. “I’m not sure, but I intend to ask. I’ll ask the boys to bring Kane in for a few questions.” “Be careful,” Sam warned. “You don’t want bad blood with Kane any more than Roth would.” Hastings nodded. “I will. Sirus, let me know when we can talk to Roth. We’ll bring in Gareth Mann, too, and see if he can talk to us about who hired him to knife Roth. Maybe Kane was the accomplice and we can get Mann to identify him.” The detective collected papers and photographs, tucking them back into the case file. “Thanks for the help, boys. I’ll be back when we’ve got something new.” He replaced his coffee back into the cardboard tray, beside

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Sammy’s, and put it on top of the folder. With a final wave, Hastings vanished up the stairs to check on his sleeping partner and make some phone calls. Arphallo watched him go and then turned to Sam. “Do you really think it could be Kane?” he asked. Arphallo had heard of Diapholese Kane. The lawyer was a powerful name among the living and dead. “Could be,” Sam said. “Kane’s not exactly a poor man, himself.” “Some people can never have enough money. Men have killed for a lot less than Kane was making from just one of the Roth contracts.” Sam looked at his partner through the steam that still floated up from his coffee in pale wisps. “But you don’t need me to tell you that, do you? Your dad murdered your grandfather over money, didn’t he?” “Yeah. My dad was having a hard time paying the bills, so he…” Arphallo shrugged, but every muscle in his shoulders felt like it was cramping. “Anyway, yes. Now my grandfather is skinriding my father’s body, giving him back the years he lost.” “That’s got to be coming up to the end soon.” Arphallo shrugged. “Not that soon. Eleven more years.” Sam sensed that his partner did not want to discuss it anymore. “How long until you can get a hold of Roth?” he asked, changing the subject. “I’m not sure. I’ll go back down to the psychomantium later today and see if I can make a more useful estimate.”

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“Thanks, Arph.” Sam stood and carried his coffee to the break room. Arphallo followed. Sam poured the coffee down the drain and tossed the cup into the trash. A blue-uniformed officer sat on the threadbare brown couch in the corner and rolled his eyes. “One of the living would have enjoyed that, Trent,” he said. “There’s coffee right there,” Sam told the other cop, pointing to an aged pot burning in a dented machine. “That stuff tastes like shit. I swear, it’s the same coffee maker they had back in your day.” Sam shrugged. “Coffee is coffee. I don’t need it to stay awake.” “Right. No sleep. Don’t know if that’s great or horrible.” The officer on the couch looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Still, it’s better than being dead, isn’t it?” “Hell yes,” Sam said quickly. “You have no idea what it’s like in the Darkness.” They waited for the dead man to say something else, reveal some secret of the Darkness. But Sam said nothing more. The dead never talked about the Dark. *** After a lunch bought from the hallway vending machine, Arphallo made his way back down to the basement. Sam offered to come with him, but Arphallo declined. There was no reason to drag his partner down to the mirror room.

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A red plastic placard in a holder under the door number – 3 – read IN USE. Arphallo ignored the sign and went inside. The gurney had been removed, but Roth’s reflection remained frozen in the antique mirrors, floating shoulder-high in empty air. Arphallo paused in the center of the psychomantium. It was hard not to think of his grandfather as he looked into the mirrors. Why am I surrounded by dead old men? he wondered. It was not a bitter thought – Sam Trent and Grandpa Kenneth Sirus were good men, better than most of the living Arphallo had ever met. So what about Vance Roth? Was he a good man? Or was there a reason he was being killed over and over? Of course, men were not in death always as they had been in life. He had been only a young boy when his father killed Grandpa Kenneth, but what little Arphallo recalled of his grandfather before death was far from kind: a pinch-faced and pinch-penny old man that smelled too strongly of peppermint. But after his murder, Kenneth Sirus had become a new man. Arphallo squinted into the mirror. The naked, pale gray shape stared at the ceiling with blank black eyes. Roth’s spectral reflection seemed to be frozen about five feet in the air, maybe five and a half. If Roth found his way back and nothing went wrong, he would probably return to the Darkness in two or three days. As he climbed the stairs back towards the exorcism department – all of the doors marked with a white pentagram – Arphallo heard shouting. When he came around the corner, he saw Detective Hastings standing at Sam’s desk, but he was not the source of

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the noise. Hastings’ young partner, Sammy, was stalking back and forth. She paused to bang her fist down onto the corner of Arphallo’s desk. “Goddamn it!” she shrieked. Every exorcist in earshot – about thirty of them – stopped and stared at Sammy. Her face was red and her short black hair looked frayed. Arphallo waited until Hurricane Sammy had moved on and slipped down behind his desk. “What’s wrong?” Arphallo asked. “Sammy’s hit critical mass,” said Sam. “He was in the middle of a fucking meeting with one of Roth’s kids when we showed up! How the hell is this going to look?” Sammy fumed. “Kane had an alibi for Roth’s murder,” Hastings said. He dodged one of Sammy’s angrily flung hands. “We dragged Diapholese Kane, one of the most prominent Dark lawyers in the city, down here for questioning and it wasn’t him.” “Ouch. Did he have anything to say about Roth?” asked Arphallo. “Not much more than we already knew,” Sam said. “What about Mann, the guy in prison for killing Roth’s second body? Or the MEs and CSU reports? Anything useful there?” “You telling me how to do my fucking job, Sirus?” Sammy shouted at Arphallo. Arphallo flinched. “What? No, of course not!” “We’ve got nothing,” said Detective Hastings. “No witnesses.

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No fingerprints, nothing off ballistics. No DNA but Fletcher’s and Roth’s on the body. Powder burns suggest he was shot at close range. The gun caliber was pretty big, not your casual small arms.” “Anything else? The case file said Roth was found in a dumpster behind a furniture store.” Sam turned a thoughtful quarter circle in his chair. “What was he doing there?” “Roth wasn’t killed there,” Sammy said. Her voice was horse from shouting. “The body was dumped.” “Did you check his house? Was he killed there?” Arphallo asked. Sammy gave him another furious look, but Hastings held up his hand. “Yeah, we went through his house. Nothing out of place, no sign of a struggle or blood spray. We’ve talked to his daughters and none of them had seen Roth – in or out of Fletcher’s body – for two days prior.” Arphallo fiddled with the corner of his notepad. He was not sure he wanted to say anything, just to have Sammy yell at him again, but the idea tickling at the back of his mind might be important. “You said the only DNA you found was from Roth, the ghost, and Fletcher, the body he was skinriding. Is that right?” Arphallo asked. “Yeah,” said Sammy slowly. “So?” “Roth’s been dead for five years. Either buried or burned. Ghosts don’t leave genetic evidence. So what is Roth’s DNA doing

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on Fletcher’s body?” Sam had the case file open again and pulled out the lab results. “CSU got the DNA from some hairs found on Fletcher’s clothes. But the back page here says that Roth’s body was cremated two days after he died. There’s no way those hairs came from Vance Roth. That DNA belongs to your killer.” Sammy and Hastings looked at each other. “The daughters,” they said together. “They share half of their chromosomes with Roth,” Sam agreed. “It’s entirely possible that their PCR tests would have matched.” “But Roth’s got three daughters. Which one was it?” Arphallo asked. *** Gareth Mann was a short, dark-skinned man with a shiny, shaven head. He wore the orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and sullen expression of a prison inmate. Hastings and Sammy returned Mann to the custody of a pair of black-uniformed prison guards. “He doesn’t look too happy,” Arphallo said. Sam was lurking in the hallway outside with his partner. They leaned against the frame of the door to one of the interview rooms. “He’s serving a life sentence,” Sam pointed out. “You wouldn’t be happy, either.”

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“I meant Hastings.” A moment later, the heavyset homicide detective opened another door, this one right next to the viewing room. Out came five of young women from the lineup, all refined and with dark hair of varying lengths. Three were stand-ins, but two of them looked shaken, Arphallo thought. Sam gestured Sammy over. “How did it go?” he asked her. “Was Mann able to pick out his contact, the one who hired him to kill Roth?” Sammy must have gotten some sleep that night – the dark circles under her hazel eyes were a little less stark and she did not immediately start shouting. Arphallo wondered if Hastings had slipped her some sleeping pills. Verso Hastings and Samantha Lefevre boasted the best closure rate in the homicide department, but clearly, that success had a cost. “Mann IDed Roth’s youngest daughter, Gaelina, for the contract,” Sammy said. Was she smiling or grimacing? Hastings emerged a final time, this time leading away another dark-haired woman. She wore handcuffs and mascara streaked down her powered cheeks. Sammy pointed. “That’s her. Mann’s lawyer is already calling for a retrial.” “Sounds like you’ve got this case squared away, Sammy,” said Sam. “No.” Sammy was definitely grimacing. “We took statements from all three sisters before they brought Mann in. We figured it would save us some time.” “So?” Arphallo asked.

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She had not rested that well, it seemed. Sammy Lefevre snorted at Arphallo. “So, we already know that Gaelina has an alibi for the night her father was shot. She was at a gala opening that night. The press was all over it. She and her little doll-face debutante buddies were on the front page of the newspaper.” “Maybe she hired someone else to do it,” Arphallo suggested. “Like she did with Mann.” “Her financials just don’t support it. Without Daddy Dearest’s money, Gaelina is dead broke. She couldn’t hire a stripper, much less a hitman.” “There’s the DNA, too. So it wasn’t her,” Sam said. “Wait, what does that mean?” Arphallo asked. “I thought we were looking at a serial?” “We were wrong.” Sam did not sound happy, but not as angry about it as Sammy. “One of the other sisters shot their father and then dumped him behind the furniture store.” “Sweet kids,” Sammy said. “Now what do we do?” “Now we talk to Vance Roth.” They both looked at Arphallo. *** Arphallo was at the psychomantium early the next morning. He leaned in the doorway, listening and flipped a silver vial in his fingers. When he finally heard the quiet, broken chime like the sound of a shattering wineglass, Arphallo called upstairs.

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“He’s back.” A few minutes later, Sam appeared in the hallway, Detectives Hastings and Sammy Lefevre close behind. Wordlessly, Arphallo opened the door and waved them inside. The psychomantium was dark and cold. A single incandescent bulb hung from the center of the ceiling, glowing orange. Fluorescents were not allowed during these sessions. The floor was covered in a layer of salt – someone would come by later to clean it up, once their work was done. The old mirrors that lined the walls did not reflect the detectives or the exorcists standing in the psychomantium. They were full of… something. Something black and smooth, but which eddied subtly, almost invisibly. “Fuck it all,” Sammy muttered. “Is this bullshit normal?” “More or less,” Hastings whispered back. A single pale shape waited in the center of the tallest mirror. It was Roth, but no longer as a still, out-of-focus image. This Vance Roth was finished, detailed, down to his stark black eyes and thinning chestnut hair. He did not appear to be wearing any clothes, but the slowly swirling obsidian shadows clung to his ethereally pale body. Concealing or constricting, it was hard to tell. Roth glared angrily down his hawkish nose at the police. “What do you want? I don’t have anything to say to the puppet patrol,” said the old man. “Now let me out of here.” His voice echoed as though in a much larger room than the

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cramped psychomantium. Sammy Lefevre yanked her hands from the pockets of her threadbare jeans and stepped up to the mirror. Roth did not flinch as she jabbed a finger at the glass. “Fine,” Sammy said. “You don’t want to talk to the exorcists. Then you can talk to me.” “I don’t have anything to say to you.” “Why are you being combative with us, Mister Roth?” Hastings asked. “We’re trying to help you.” Hasting firmly took Sammy by the shoulder and pulled her back a pace. Salt crunched under their heels. Roth’s ghost watched them from the mirror, silent and secretive. “Mister Roth, my name is Verso Hastings. Sammy and I are homicide detectives,” said Hastings. “We’re looking into your murders.” “I wasn’t murdered,” Roth answered stiffly. “What? Mister Roth, your last puppet was shot in the back of the head. The exit wound obliterated the poor fellow’s face. We couldn’t even find his teeth. Are you telling me that you don’t remember that?” The ghost said nothing. He crossed pale, thin arms over his chest and stared at the living with his black eyes. Death did not seem to have gentled Vance Roth very much, Arphallo thought. Hastings raised his brows at the ghost in the mirror. “What about the last time, Mister Roth? You and your puppet were shot by an old employee, Gareth Mann,” said the detective. “You must remember that, at least.”

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“Mann was caught and convicted. I testified at his trial,” Roth said. “But Mann maintained that he was hired by someone else,” Hastings insisted. “We’ve caught that someone, Mister Roth. It was your youngest daughter, Gaelina.” Roth faltered. His eyes dropped and his frown twitched into something softer, sadder. “You knew, didn’t you?” Sammy challenged. “Your own daughter killed you for her inheritance, money that you took back every time you came back out of the Dark.” “I knew,” Roth said quietly. “I told her not to come to the trial, or else Mann might point her out.” “But Gaelina has an alibi for your most recent death,” Hastings said. “Do you know who killed you? Based on the DNA evidence, we think it was one of the other girls.” “You can’t compel me to implicate members of my own family!” Roth was angry now. “I’m not saying another word! You can sweep that salt right up and let me go.” Hasting sighed and Sammy threw her hands in the air with an angry groan. “Cut him loose, then,” she told Arphallo. “Dead bastard doesn’t have to tell us a fucking thing.” “Wait,” Sam said. “Arph, don’t send him off yet.” “What the hell is this?” Roth asked. “I haven’t broken a single Dark law.” “No, you haven’t,” Sam said. He paced carefully over the

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salted floor of the psychomantium. “You made your contracts, as the Little Boy tells us we must. But you know all about your own murders, Roth. You made your contract with Fletcher to avoid notice. You were trying not get killed again.” “I haven’t done anything wrong!” “What are you going to do if we let you go, Roth? Go find yourself a new puppet? Some poor living soul desperate for a wad of your money?” “What business is that of yours, spook?” “You’ll just get your new host killed. You’re putting the living in danger by keeping your mouth shut, Roth. You’re getting them killed.” Sam touched his fingertips to one of the dark, empty mirrors. His ghost cast a faint, barely visible reflection. “Now, how do you think that’s going to sit with the Little Boy? You know what the balance with the Light means to him.” Roth grew – if possible – even paler. “What?” “I’m dead, too, and if you force me to, I’ll bring this before the Little Boy himself. Do you know what’s going to happen then? You’ll never get out of the Darkness again, Roth.” “You can’t do that!” Roth shouted. His mirror shivered against the wall of the psychomantium. “Watch me,” Sam told him coldly. “Tell us what you know, Roth. Help us stop these murders and suddenly, it’s safe for you to go skinriding again.” Roth stood statue-still for a long moment, lips pursed into a thin line. “It was my daughter,” he said.

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“Which one? Gaelina?” Hastings asked. “No,” Roth said slowly. “It was Braellin, my middle girl. The first time.” “First time?” “Before, with the car. Her husband works at the shop I took my car to. I think she had him do something to the brakes.” “We’ll look into it,” Hastings said. He scribbled notes on a pad. “I’ll need names and dates. What about the third murder, Mister Roth? When you were skinriding Fletcher?” The ghost was quiet long enough to make Arphallo worry. Finally, he spoke. Roth could not meet Hasting’s eyes. He stared at Sam as the dead cop looked into the blackened mirrors. “This time… it was my oldest, Jaestina. My girl. After the thing with Mann, I avoided contacting anyone except my lawyer.” Hastings and Sammy exchanged a look. “Kane didn’t mention that,” Hastings said. “He wouldn’t,” Roth told him. “Not if he wants to keep his job. I didn’t call my family. But Jaestina found me. I don’t know how. She found me in the new host and called. Asked me to come over to her house. I just couldn’t say no.” “And then?” Hastings asked. “And then she shot me.” “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?” Sammy yelled, waving her arms. “Your own kids – all three of them, no less! – murdered you!” “They’re my children!” Roth shouted back just as loudly.

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“My own blood! How could I rat them out? I spoiled the girls so bad when they were kids, just like their mothers… I’m their father! It was my goddamn right!” Arphallo had been wrong, then. Roth may not have been a gentle man, but he loved his family, in his own way. “But if it was just about the money, why didn’t you just stay in the Darkness?” Arphallo asked curiously. “If you didn’t come back, they would have inherited it all. If you loved them enough not to turn them in, why didn’t you just… stay dead?” Roth shuddered. “I couldn’t. You have no idea what it’s like there, out in the Darkness.” Sam turned to face the other ghost, expressionless. Roth fell silent. *** Sammy was asleep in an interview room again, after a long all-night session checking into Vance Roth’s stories. Arphallo was certain he could almost hear her snoring through the precinct floors that separated them. “It looks like they’re all going to pan out,” Hastings said, handing out coffees. He sat, smoothing his purple plaid tie over his belly. “We’ve got all three Roth girls in custody now.” “A rich old man being killed by his own kids.” Sam sighed and shook his head. “Shit, I wish it wasn’t true.” “Me, too.” Hastings stroked his tie. “I can’t even imagine

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doing this to your own father.” “You’ve got a bunch of your own kids. Would you ever turn them in?” Arphallo asked. “I don’t know,” Hastings admitted. “But if Roth’s daughters were cold enough to kill their own father and three innocent hosts, why didn’t they just destroy Roth’s ghost? Keep him from ever returning to the Light? That can be done, right? There are ghosts who never come back. What about soul traps?” “Yeah, it can be done,” Arphallo told the detective. “A soul trap is tricky, but it can stop a ghost from entering the Darkness. Still, that’s different than actually destroying the soul. You can free a soul from a trap. It’s hard, but it can be done.” “You can destroy a ghost, too, but it takes a lot of power and skill,” said Sam. “There aren’t many exorcists with that kind of ability. It would have been next to impossible for any of the Roth daughters to hire someone like that.” Hastings gave Arphallo a speculative look. “Could you do it, Exorcist Sirus? Could you kill a ghost?” Arphallo didn’t answer that.

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The Bike Mechanic Aaron Wilson Episode Four

“Dan, its Cooper.” “I have a bike that needs to be delivered in the next couple of days. Do you think that you can help?” “Destination?” “Out of country. I was thinking somewhere south.” Seward sucked in and bit his lower lip. He hadn’t spoken with Cooper in years. Their last interaction had been cold, frigid really, and they had agreed to have nothing to do with each other ever again. However, by the way Cooper was going about business on the phone, Seward’s hopes were high that they would be able to workout their differences. “Fanny Jones just went south. Chile, I think.” “That’ll work.” “Can you get the bike down river, or you need me to pick it up?” Seward looked at Inez sitting in the open side door of his delivery van. He hadn’t thought about passing Inez off to another in the railroad. Passing her off was the next logical step, which is how the railroad was supposed to work and keep the spooks guessing. However, he’d already forgone the test, and he’d already

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interacted with two federal agents. It seemed he was committed to another adventure. He knew it would be his last real chance to take part in something more subversive than the annual May Day Parade and festival. Seward puffed up his chest and said, “No, I’ll deliver.” “How far?” “The whole way.” “Wow, man. She must be a pretty special bike.” “She is.” “You ride her yet?” “No.” “Is there hope?” Seward felt his jeans tighten. A little embarrassed, Seward turned away from Inez and the delivery van. “Look, can you help?” “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean anything by it.” “What do you need from me?” “I need pictures. On your way down, you’ll need to stop at, I don’t know, somewhere you can get headshots, like a Kinko’s.” “That it?” “Yeah, that’ll do it.” “Cooper, just to warn you, this bike is hot, so if you want out, I’ll understand. I don’t want another misunderstanding between us.” “Shit man, is that why we haven’t… Well, I guess I could have called you too. What happened in Albuquerque is history, man.”

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Seward let his shoulders slump and he leaned against the building. “Here I thought you still blamed me for Julie.” “No, man. Listen. Julie was wildfire. It was only a matter of time before something happened to her. I’m just glad that we didn’t go down with her.” “Okay, I have a few local deliveries before I can skip town. Will two days give you enough time?” “Sure enough.” “Okay. Two days.” “Two days.” Seward waited for Cooper to hang up, but he didn’t hear the line disconnect and the phone wasn’t giving him disconnected static. It was beeping as if there’d been a third party listening in. Seward wanted to chalk the strange silence up to a cheap phone, but he knew better. He knew that his prepay was too new to have a bug, but he wasn’t so sure about Cooper’s phone. Seward pulled himself off the wall and walked over to the delivery van. He looked down at Inez, and he asked, “You ready to go?”

Inez sat in the back of the van with the bikes. She had turned over a yellow milk crate and was using it as a seat. She leaned with the van as it turned corners and slid a little when the van came to a stop at traffic signals. “How much does delivery cost?” “Gas, miles, and tip.”

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“How many bikes do you deliver?” “Not many. Most of my customers live around the area, just a few blocks from the shop, but I do get a few folks from as far away as Burnsville and Maple Grove.” “How far’s that?” “15 to 20 minutes.” Inez looked at the tag hanging off an expensive looking road bike. “If you can afford a Delta 7 Ascend, why bring it to your shop?” Inez dropped the tag. “I mean…I don’t mean to…” “No worries. You don’t know me, and I guess what you do know of me is practically ancient history.” Seward tried to adjust his rearview mirror so that he could see Inez in the back, but he couldn’t find the right angle. “There are very few people in the United States that can be trusted to work on a D7A, and I guess I’m one of them, or I guess I should say, I was one of them.” “What do you mean, was?” Inez shifted on her box. “I don’t think anyone followed us. You can come up front.” Seward looked over the back of his seat. “We’re far enough south now.” As Inez crawled into the passenger’s seat, she asked, “Where are we going? I thought that St. Louis Park was only a few minutes away.” “We’re about a half-hour south on HWY 35.” Seward looked over at Inez. He thought she looked innocent, or was it her question that made her seem that way? “The D7A and the others back there,” Seward hitched his thumb over his shoulder, “represent

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your train ticket.” Inez buckled her belt and put her feet on the dash. “But those bikes aren’t yours.” “Oh, so now the hardened eco-terrorist is worried about the theft of a couple of road bikes,” Seward laughed. “A couple of road bikes,” Inez sat up. “The D7A’s frame-set goes for what, 6K, and it looks like it has all the trim, so it must be worth at least 15K or 16K.” “I’m impressed. You know your bikes.” Seward pulled out a map and tossed it into Inez’s lap. “Open that. Oh, and if you’re still wondering, there’s roughly 200K in the back, and I think that’s just in the bikes that are built up.” While Inez unfolded the map, she said, “If I had a D7A, I’d lojack it.” “Well, actually the Delta 7 Ascend is traceable, but I know where the GPS chip is located, and I’ll take care of it soon. The owner won’t think to look for it for a few days. He is, well, I guess now, was a good friend.” Seward shook his head. He was starting truly to buy into Inez’s innocence. He could see that she had no idea that in order to help her, he’d given up the shop. He was now on the run, too. Inez finished unfolding the map. “Okay, so now what?” “So what do you think?” “It looks like a map of Chile.” Seward waited. He knew it would sink in, but she was taking her sweet time realizing just what running meant for her life. He

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wasn’t going to tell her the specifics just yet. In time, he might tell her his plan to meet Cooper in Louisiana, pick up forged documents, and take a pleasure cruise down and around the tip of South America before beginning a new life in exile. He knew that his bike repair skills would help him find work in Chile. Parts of The country were used as an Olympic training ground for both winter and summer athletes, because of its varied climates and altitudes. Seward knew he’d come out on top, but he was beginning to worry about Inez. “I don’t understand.” Inez turned the map over and over before folding it up again. “Why do we need a map of Chile?” “Verá. Verá.” You’ll see, he thought.

Inez shifted several times, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She pushed herself upright in her seat, and then she slouched. “Are you okay over there?” Seward asked. “Could you pull over somewhere, so that I can use a bathroom?” “Emergency?” Seward scanned the road a head. He spotted a road sign. “Can you wait a few minutes? There’s a gas station a few miles up the road, or do you need me to pull over here?” “I can wait.” “You sure?” Seward hiked his thumb over his shoulder. “Now that I think of it, there must be a couple of empty containers in the back somewhere. We can dump it out when we stop.”

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“I can wait. Can we talk about something else or listen to the radio?” “The radio is busted. I don’t usually take the van on long trips.” “Don’t you think that the guys out front will have noticed that we’re not coming back?” Inez crossed her legs again and sucked on her lower lip. “Yeah, they’ll notice.” “Won’t they start looking for your van?” Inez spread her arms as if she were Vanna White turning letters on Wheel-of-Fortune. “I mean it has a picture of your face on the side of it.” “What?” “I’m just saying.” “Okay. I’ll take care of it when we stop.” Seward pointed at the side of the road. “Here we go.” Seward exited HWY 35, and he pulled in beside a gas pump at a BP station. Inez had jumped out, and she had run for the convenience store before he had even had the chance to turn the van off and put it into park. Seward got out and filled the tank. Then he walked around his van. He loved the picture of him on his chopper. A friend had taken it as a joke, but Seward loved it, so he had it made into a large magnet. Carefully, trying not to damage the magnet, he peeled it off the side. It was flexible enough to loosely roll up, but he didn’t have a tube or anything to tie it with, so he went into the store with the intention of buying rope.

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He walked up and down the isles looking at all the different types of chocolate bars, gum, and bags of sweet and salty things before making his way to the automotive section where he picked up some rope. As he was paying for the rope and gas, he looked up into the security mirror above the clerk. In the mirror, he could see Inez. She was talking adamantly on one of the pay phones. Her body language, the flailing of arms, the set of her hips, and how she white knuckled the receiver, told Seward she was upset. However, she didn’t look upset in the way he expected. It looked more as if she was giving instructions to a child who didn’t listen the first three times to clean his room. Seward finished up at the register, and he went back out to his van and stored the magnet in the back with the bikes. He got in and waited. As he sat there, he started to have doubts about Inez again. She had just shown up out of nowhere, and here he was helping her. What did he know about her other than what she had told him? As far as he knew, she could have been on the phone with the Feds. This whole scenario could have been constructed to ensnare him, his contacts, and his friends. She was in the store, on the phone, right now, reporting their location and asking for help, back up because no one expected a middle-aged, has-been eco-activist to take off with a young girl in order to fulfill some wet dream he had had as an undergrad in college. Seward looked in the driver’s side mirror. He could feel the open road calling him back. He looked into the rearview and saw the darkness envelop bikes and bike parts. He then twisted the

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rearview and looked into his own eyes. He thought, Seward has had a good run. It might be time for a change. In that moment, his soft friendly eyes wrinkled and hardened. The passenger door opened. “I see that you’ve taken the ad down.” Seward took along deep breath before turning to look at Inez. “Who were you talking to on the phone?”

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Thrown Out: Stories from Exeter Jennie Coughlin

reviewed by Phyllis Anne Duncan Sometimes a book just pisses me off. When I get to the end, and there’s no more, I’m disgruntled. This was the case with Thrown Out: Stories from Exeter by indie author Jennie Coughlin (Smashwords, $0.99; Kindle version, $2.99). There are only four stories in this linked collection, and that was so not enough. Coughlin, originally from Franklin, MA and now a journalist in Staunton, VA, has created Exeter from the whole cloth that can be any small town, especially any small town in New England. I spent a good part of two decades in Nowich in eastern Connecticut, and Coughlin’s Exeter could be plopped onto the city without its denizens noticing. Exeter is largely IrishCatholic, but there are no stereotypes. Coughlin’s writing style is crisp, succinct, and that makes these characters as close as if you’re sitting next to them in the bleachers at a softball game. I love being “inside” a book that way. “Bones of the Past” is the first of the four stories, and it addresses, without blinking, an issue most Irish Americans opt to ignore: the Irish Mob in America was at times deadlier and more feared than the Italian Mob. This story also introduces several of

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the characters you’ll see throughout the book. An aged Riordan is the storyteller everyone comes to, even to hear the same stories over and over again. (And IMHO, Coughlin can count herself as the most recent in a long line of Irish storytellers.) Riordan’s story of the Irish Mob hiding bodies in Exeter’s swamps is chilling, vivid, and true to life. The next offering is “Thrown Out,” a story of two people in love—one comfortable in his own skin, the other with a trauma so searing it threatens their relationship. Dan is Exeter’s hero, young, handsome, athletic, and likeable. Chris, from a rural state down South, is his lover, skittish, reticent, and constantly worried about the acceptance of Dan’s family and friends. Dan has a simple request of Chris—come to one of Dan’s softball games. Chris dithers—a lot—but for an understandable reason, one he is hesitant to share with Dan. Yeah, they’re gay. So what? This is a universal story of love and doubt and accepting who you are, and Exeter is a remarkably progressive town. Would that we could clone the attitudes there. Chris was brutally assaulted when he was outed at work by a drunk former lover. The physical scar is obvious, but the psychic scars direct how he interacts with Dan and the people of Exeter. Chris is so afraid of a repeat of bigotry, he skulks on the edges of Dan’s life. When he finally attends a ball game, he feels his reticence is justified when, Joe, the town bully, on the opposing team, rags on Dan. After the game, in the local pub, Chris is downright uncomfortable when Dan throws a casual arm around

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his shoulders in public. Joe raises a fuss, and Chris is devastated, even though it’s apparent the patrons at the pub favor Dan over the brutish Joe, whom Dan thrashed when Joe was a high school senior and Dan a lowly freshman. I was just about fed up with Chris’ spinelessness. He couldn’t unconditionally accept Dan’s love and support, and I foresaw an unhappy resolution. Then, at another ball game, Joe confronts Chris, who tells him: “The way I hear it, you’ve been fighting this same fight for almost 10 years and you haven’t won once. You want to keep beating your head against the wall, go for it… we’re always going to be who we are. You’re not going to change us.” Both Chris and Joe got the point. In “End Run” we learn a bit more about Joe through his father, F.X. O’Leary—and didn’t you know I knew his name was Francis Xavier before Coughlin ever mentioned it. Joe’s wife has left him and his children. We’re never quite sure why, but we have a good suspicion. Joe is not just a bully on the ball field. He hates the fact his son always has his nose buried in a book; sports are much more important. Joe’s father and mother have been watching out for Joe’s son Tim as much as they legally can. We see a father uncertain how his son, Joe, turned out the way he did and fearful, not of his son but rather of having his grandson withheld from him. The “end run” O’Leary’s friends come up with is brilliant. “Intricate Dance” takes us back to a time in Catholic New England when a woman, even an abused one, couldn’t get a di-

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vorce unless her husband agreed. We meet the storyteller, Riordan, early in his life and legal career. He is the woman’s lawyer, and he’s up against a powerful selectman who has the police and the courts in his pocket, if not in his pay. The selectman, aware Riordan is his wife’s lawyer, is your basic, power-drunk politician, accustomed to using threats and innuendo to get his way. He’s just another Joe, but sleazier. At an art show, the selectman questions whether Riordan’s girlfriend is underage, and wouldn’t it be bad for Riordan’s law license if word were to get out about that? We see the extent of the selectman’s influence when, after the divorce proceedings where witnesses described the abuse the selectman dealt to his wife, the judge “decides” there isn’t enough evidence to justify a divorce. All I’ll say is, there’s a better ending than this implies. Aside from ending far too soon for me, Thrown Out has some formatting issues I’ve discovered in other Smashwords-to-Kindle works. If that sort of thing doesn’t distract you, never mind. I was pleased to discover Exeter’s story continues in a series of novels Coughlin has in the works. Exeter is a place you need to visit. Go there, and Exeter will welcome you.

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Catharsis Jonathan Face

reviewed by Essie Holton Indie Author Jonathan Face delivers a suspenseful, mysteriously unfolding tale of a condemned town. As the story slowly progresses, the reader is left with a feeling of dread, a feeling that something bad is going to happen in Spring City. The inhabitants of this small town seem like good enough people, but they all have secrets. Unfortunately, you can’t hide your secrets from unknown forces hell bent on bringing justice upon town’s occupants. Throughout the story, you learn a little bit about each character until you have a picture in your head that leaves you knowing that these aren’t good people, despite the warm and fuzzy facade. Jonathan Face does a good job building the characters into real people, giving away only a little about their pasts. As a snow storm moves through the town, the inhabitants bear down for extremely bad weather. Slowly, things draw the residents out of (or into) their homes to their deaths. The innocent are pulled away to be saved. Jonathan Face’s writing style is enjoyable to read, and the book was pretty well edited and proofed. The only annoyance that I found was the use of the word ‘presently’. Of course, this is only my opinion, if you say that someone did something, I assume that, in the story, they are doing it then. I don’t need to

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know that ‘Presently, he walked down the street’ or whatever action was taken. In this instance, the story was in the past tense, so no one actually did anything presently. There, my rant is done. There were a few, I won’t call them plot holes, but a few places where I wanted to know more information about the characters. For instance, we get to know the town librarian Kathy. She has a tainted past and moved to Spring City to hide, and probably escape consequences. I have no idea what she did, but I want to know. At one point, near the end of the story, she is almost forced to tell her story to another deranged citizen, but their chat is interrupted and Kathy’s story is never told. I’m still left wondering what she did. Overall, an excellent, suspenseful, compelling story. I’ll be on the lookout for more novels by Jonathan Face. Right now, Catharsis is free for Nook and Kindle.

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Contributors SM Rosenberg is a 21 year-old, Jewish girl from Queens, a near-compulsive TV watcher, an avid baseball fan, and she wishes could write dialogue like Aaron Sorkin and prose like Bill Bryson, even though anyone can tell you that you should always write like yourself and no one else. She’ll be beginning her junior year this fall at the Macaulay Honors program at Brooklyn College in New York City, where she’s majoring in Creative Writing. She’s wanted to be a novelist since 4th grade, and she began writing my first book in 5th grade. After participating in 826NYC’s 2005 Young Adult Writers Colony, an early draft of her novel was published in a non-profit anthology. More recently, a revised version was named a Quarterfinalist (top 250 out of 5000) in the 2011 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. She is currently working on the sequels as well as a new novel, for which she is planning to do research in Hollywood. Marcin Wrona is a Canadian author of fantasy and science fiction, a multiple immigrant, a beer connoisseur, and the owner of many hats both literal and metaphoric. His third novel, When on High, will be available in electronic formats in December 2011. For more information, please visit marcinwrona.ca.

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Richard Freeland has been a writer for several years and has recently published his first book, an anthology of short stories titled “Equinox - Six Declinations”, as an ebook available at the Kindle store. The book garnered a high of 8000 downloads in August, has earned six 5-star reviews on Amazon.com, and a positive review from The Alternative blog. He lives with his wife Martha, two great boys Josh & Scott, one elderly Border Collie named Wendy, and their cat, Henry (the King of the Known Universe), in Gainesville, Georgia. He’s currently working on several short stories and a novel, which is in the 4th draft. You can find more from Richard at http://www.dragonlyre.com Adam Byatt sifts through the ennui, minutiae and detritus of life and catalogues them as potential story ideas. He is an English teacher and drummer with an interest in literary pursuits, rhythmic permutations, theological amplifications and comedic outbursts. A wanna-be drumming rock star, he wonders if he can one day combine the rock and roll lifestyle with a book signing tour. He exists on twitter as @revhappiness and writes flash fiction at http://afullnessinbrevity.wordpress.com Edward Raso is an emerging author. His first print publication will be a short story, Your Last Shoes, due out in the spring of 2012 in the inaugural issue of The Naked Feather. You’ll be able to order a copy on their website.

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