The Fable Online Issue 8 October, 2015
Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kedar Associate Editor Cassiopeia Lancaster
Š2015, The Fable Online|Contributing Authors
Table of Contents Poetry Love Sonnet by Li첫saidh .....................................................................................................5 Well After Sundown by G.A. Saindon ...............................................................................................6 Flash Fiction Beneath The Hum by Corrie Adams ..............................................................................................9 Television Time
by Joseph J. Patchen ........................................................................................11
Short Story November 1963 Texas by Bryan Grafton ............................................................................................14
Poetry
Love Sonnet by Liùsaidh Risk is my way, my hand tipped by your thrall The future wagered through a veil of tears And yet, sweet sir, I gave to you my all I’ve never run from sorrows or from fears. Though I’m bereft and nearly gone from reason I love you still, and more, each passing day If I but had you briefly for a season You’re yet my holy path, my wicked way. Your anger stems from all my foolish pride But never doubt the love I live for you. The woman that you’ve always loved inside She gambles hard, her heart-toss sure and true. I’m still your lover, confidente and friend: For nothing I regret. I’d risk again.
Liùsaidh is a poet and author from the west of Scotland. Writing from a crackridden council estate, the poems are always strange. You can find them online and in print, most recently in Unlost Journal, and The Ghazal Page.
Well After Sundown by G.A. Saindon I deeply wish it were otherwise… active under the late October skies are my lilacs and willows: in this darkness one follows the tree line athwart a sky pitch and solid where the forest, which primps close by, presents a veil parting upon my willows bending, starting to move, to uproot and wander the lawn, meeting the lilacs under October’s cooling stars, for what, I don’t know. Let’s just say that I’ve unsettled myself, and as well would see a ghost, a stuttering skull, as find the lilacs sprightly tiptoeing to meet a pair of willows going God knows where. How lilacs talk to willows - I shudder and balk at pondering such improbable scenes: the willows’ voice like echoes in a dream; the lilacs’ like a spring snowfall coolly whispering, I suppose; though I fully expect that this episode will be unremembered when my wits revisit me.
They live 4 miles south of the Seymour Public Library. They own 5 acres, surrounded by forests and swamps on three sides; and Vine Road on the East. The trees are beckoning always. The bower, where G.A. Saindon sits and writes things, is especially cozy and haunting. The pond they have is always visited by creatures wanting water. Deer, raccoons, herons, sandhill cranes, geese, mergansers and others, that footprints confirm. They are not naturalists, just loving the place. So many stories to tell, having lived here 23 years. Poems to write.
Flash Fiction
Beneath The Hum by Corrie Adams The cicadas buzzed like chainsaw-wielding garden gnomes. Lucy could practically see the gang of tiny old men lurking in the shadows of the tallest trees. They wore wild beards and hard hats and stood ready to tear down summer for the season. She closed her eyes, whispered a charm to ward them off. She wasn’t ready for September yet. Mama lay on her deck chair like a fat queen upon her throne. Sweat dotted her sunburnt forehead like a diamond tiara and when she called for Lucy to fetch her sunglasses, she gestured toward the house with her beer bottle scepter. “Your glasses, my lady.” Lucy curtseyed. “Don’t be a smartass, missy.” “Sorry, Mama.” Lucy walked over to what used to be the garden in other summers. Instead of a thick carpet of the pink and purple flowers Daddy always planted, there were clumps of Queen Anne’s lace and stalks of goldenrod, some of it taller than her. She sat down in the crispy brown grass alongside the dusty plants, closed her eyes and listened. This was important listening, and it was hard work. She had to drop down below all the surface noise. She had to find her way to the messages she knew were waiting for her underneath. Past Mama’s phoney-phone voice, saying, “Well, I know that, Becky. But he left, didn’t he? What am I supposed to do now?” Past the thrum of a hundred air conditioners and pool filters and lawn mowers. Past the lonely dogs barking. Past the noisy cars and the crying babies. Past all of it, below it, where she could find the golden buzz of the fairies who whispered secrets on the hot, sleepy air. Lucy hummed, a quiet, tuneless vibration in the back of her throat. She sat very, very still. And when she felt a tickle on her knee, she opened her eyes. “Hello, sir,” she whispered. Tiny black legs moved restlessly along her leg. The plump and fuzzy creature stretched his wings and then stilled. “Will you help me?”
He dipped his antenna. She bent her head close. Looked into his shiny dark eyes. “Please, sir, won’t you tell me? Why did he go? What did she do to him?” “Good Lord, girl!” Mama screeched. Lucy jumped and looked over her shoulder to see Mama barrelling toward her. “Get outta them weeds and away from the bees. You want to get stung or something?” When Lucy looked back, she discovered her companion had flown away. She swallowed hard and swiped her hand over her eyes before Mama could see she was crying. But Mama wasn’t even looking. She was already back in her lawn chair. Back on the phone. “Sorry Becky. This girl of mine, I just don’t know. All those fairy books she reads scrambled her brains or something. She’s talking to bumblebees now, for godssakes. No wonder Mike doesn’t call.” Lucy sniffed. She rubbed at her eyes, close to real tears now, and she didn’t know a single spell to ward them off. The first sob bubbled up in her throat, but before it could escape, tiny wings cut through the air so close, she felt the ripple against her cheek. And an angry whine echoed in her ears. “Shit!” Mama yelled, slapping at her neck. The skin on her fat pink arm wobbled and she knocked over her beer. The bottle smashed into a million slivers when it hit the concrete patio slab, the liquid soaked into the stone. “Son of a bitch stung me,” Mama said. Lucy smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Corrie spends her days wrangling numbers, but enjoys playing with words at night. Her work has appeared in magazines such as More of Our Canada and Lifestyles Magazine, and her short fiction has been included in several anthologies, including WORDPLAY 2013, Frustrated Writers, and Little Bird Stories: Volume 5. Corrie lives in Newmarket, Ontario with her husband and two sons.
Television Time by Joseph J. Patchen “She’s a former Miss Teen All-American, who for the last three years has played your favorite international intergalactic wife and mother on the hit TV show “Not All Aliens Are Evil”. Let’s have a big Burbank welcome for Ginger Brittney!” God, take some tranquilizers. Every time I hear this announcer he’s so peppy. He must rest up special between broadcasts just so he can concentrate on his peppiness. I know I couldn’t be that peppy all the time; not with my job and kids and husband; not to mention Mom and Dad and all their illnesses. Oooh, Ginger looks even better since the implants. That audience ovation sure is swelling more than her new . . . I remember her years ago, even before that Miss Teen thing. She used to be one of those kids on that after school program, “Young Whiteshirts”. I wonder how many people remember that show besides me? It’s the one where all those clean-cut boys and girls dressed in orange sweaters, white pants, and white shoes—like midget cheerleaders. They’d march around with flags and sparklers, singing songs and saluting: teaching you all about history and a good, clean America. They used to call that ‘entertainment’. Boy, that crowd isn’t letting up. She looks great in that dress—not too much cleavage and the slit’s thigh-high but tasteful. I wonder how she lost the weight from having those twins. In her last movie—she had to be pregnant, so she got pregnant in real life. What a perfectionist! I hear you can bid on the kids on-line with a portion of the money going to some charity. “He’s well known every night at 6:30 . . .” Oh my God - it’s Brad Drake, the network anchorman. He is so sincere, you can see his eyes welling up every night when he reads about a mass shooting. He’s a such a catch young and good-looking, a tri-athlete even. Rumor has it, he can bench press twice his weatherman’s weight. And look how snug and cozy his bicep cradles Ginger’s waist. What a wonderful choice. I’m sure they’ll have chemistry just from the way they’re smiling at each other, it’s going to be electric. Oh, such a natural pair. Especially since I didn’t like the first couple. Who in their right mind would think a scrawny volleyball champion and a classical guitarist would ever have a chance. I mean, they can’t hold a candle to Brad and Ginger. Clearly the audience agrees with me. If I were there, I’d be jumping up and down in my seat, too. There’s just no contest. Brad and Ginger - well, they just look better together. I
am so confident. No coin-flip this time. It’s Brad and Ginger all the way. I hope the damn phone lines aren’t tied up. Ring for heaven’s sake! Then again, I can always text. God, their complexions are just so clean and bright; their teeth so straight. My God, the audience is giving them a standing ovation. This just isn’t a contest. There’s no doubt in my mind. If the crowd thinks so, so do I. They’re the perfect match. I just don’t understand why someone didn’t think of this years ago. Oooh, it’s ringing! Yes, my vote’s gonna be added to that applause meter? Super! I’m gonna register my vote for Brad and Ginger—the next President and Vice-President of the United States.
Joseph mostly writes horror and science fiction and has done so for the last four plus years. I have over one hundred published pieces, stories and poetry, in a variety of magazines and anthologies. He is the assistant editor of 'The Carnage Conservatory' and the literary critic for Lurid-lit.com.
Short Story
November 1963 Texas by Bryan Grafton
“Who wants some Candy?” shouted the emcee at the Hep Katz Klub to the smoke hazed barroom crowd of raucous, rowdy, raunchy revelers and other assorted random low lifes of San Antonio Texas. They all had paid the exorbitant cover charge for the privilege of tossing back watered down drinks while hooting and hollering at the strippers. “Okay let’s bring her on and remember to enter our contest, only a slight entry fee to do so gents, I’m sure you gentleman can afford it since Miss Candy would certainly appreciate the money if you know what I mean, and then you can take a crack, yuk, yuk, yuk, at guessing her numbers. Yall know what I mean by that I’m sure. Let’s welcome her with a big round of Texas yee-ha applause, Miss Candy Chocolate.” With that usual whoop to do out of the way the scantily clad Miss Candy Chocolate slinked her way on to the stage to the generic drum roll and bump and hump grinding music that traditionally greeted all strippers. The men roared the usual cheap sleazy cat calls expected of them so they could prove to each other their manhood. They loved their Chocolate Candy. But it wasn’t a usual night. Something was up. Something wasn’t right. She could sense it. Cops, undercover cops, she thought, were coming through the door and up to the stage, pushing their way to the first row and looking up her legs. Where was Izzy, the owner, she thought. He wouldn’t of let them get by with this. He’d have cut them off at the door. Taken them aside and given them a free drink or two and made the customary assurances that whatever or whoever they were looking for wasn’t here. The cops would be gone in a little while each with a smile on his face and cash money in his pocket. Who was going to protect her if he wasn’t here? His worthless son Marty. She didn’t think so. Izzy, Isadore Katz, had come to this country as a teenager with his Jewish parents fleeing the coming horror of Nazi Germany. Grew up in the slum holes of New York City. Saw his chances as a bootlegger and took ‘em. But when the mob, the Italians that is, started taking over, he saw his chances taken from him. He took his ill-gotten gains and went west as a young man to Texas and opened his own club when prohibition was repealed. He vainly and cleverly named it The Hep Katz Klub. But now he was old, too old, his faculties, mental and physical were wearing away. His son was chomping at the bit to
take over his business. Candy ground to her last gyration. The music stopped. She exited the stage and went to her dressing room. There sat a big oaf of a hairy cop, lounging back in her chair, his feet propped up on her dressing, or lack of dressing, table blowing smoke rings and scratching his armpit. “I’m Detective Bond. My partner will be joining us shortly. He’s checking on something,” he grunted from his seat not budging. “Gee thanks for offering a lady a seat, Detective Bond," said Candy. You got a first name and any ID Detective Bond?” “Larry. Larry Bond. Say, miss, why don’t you put some clothes on?” “Why go to all the trouble. Just have to take them off again anyway. Besides there’s nothing here you haven’t already seen tonight is there Mr. Bond? ID please,” she insisted. “Don’t wise off with me doll,” he said as he flashed his badge so quickly that Candy had no idea what it said. What difference did it make anyway. He had one and he wasn’t leaving. Where’s Izzy, she thought or at least that goof ball Marty. “You’re going to have to come with us, Miss. Your boss has had a heart attack and might not make it. He’s at that Jewish hospital downtown, Mount Something or other. He’s been asking for you. He says he’s got to tell you something in case he croaks out. Says you’re the only one he can trust to tell it to. So hurry up and get your knickers on honey.” “That bad?” “That real bad, that’s what my partner is checking on, to see if he’s still with us.” “Why not get Marty?” asked Candy. “He wanted you, not his son. Kind of close to him are you?” sneered the detective. “You know it's strange he wouldn’t want his son at a time like this so as to take care of everything with his business and with all the Barzini and Tattaglia trouble he’s got. We’ve been keeping our eyes on those goons and Izzy. Which one he backing anyway, Barzinis or Tattaglias?” “How the hell would I know. I’m just an employee. I don’t run the place. I’m just a goddam sleazy cheesy stripper employee, or can’ ya tell you slimeball. Your brain shifts into neutral.” “Oh, but your special honey. He’s wanting you doll. Maybe your relationship with him was personal and not business, maybe monkey business.”
“That sweet little old man never laid a hand on me. We’re just good friends that’s all.” “Well, the other babes in this joint say you and him spent a lot of time together behind closed doors in his office if ya get my drift. So’s if ya wasn’t talking business ya had to be talking the language of love, for a price that is. After all what in the world would an old Jew and a young colored gal have in common?” “Discrimination,” she answered. “We talked about discrimination.” “Discrimination,” said the detective. He was nonplused. “Yes, discrimination, something you white boys can’t understand.” “Izzy’s white. He ain’t colored. Might pass for colored if he’d work on his tan, but he ain’t colored.” “He’s Jewish ya goof,” Candy hollered at the copper. “Family came from Germany. He’d tell me of all the pogroms the Jews suffered in Europe. How their rights were stripped from them. All the atrocities. Kristallnacht. etc. etc. etc. Then I’d tell him of all the discrimination, lynchings, segregation and mistreatment us coloreds receive here in the good old U.S. of A. Misery loves company. That’s what we talked about. Izzy gave me a job when no one else would. Ya, I love him, love him like a father. I’d do anything for that sweet little old man.” “Programs, what programs in Europe?” He asked. Jesus Christ! Are you dumb, s he thought. “Well he’s under investigation, he and his wop buddies,” Detective Bond reminded her. “They ain’t his buddies you fool. Can’t you see both families are bleeding him dry. He hates both those goddam spaghetti suckers as he calls them, said they discriminated against him. Wasn’t like the old days he said when he started out bootlegging. Back then everybody was in the gangs together, worked together too he said, the Jews, the Irish, the Krauts, Wops, Polacks, even had a few coloreds working for them. Then those goddam Italians took over he said, only family members allowed, everyone else had to go. And if they didn’t go peacefully, well they went one way or another.” “Ain’t no news to us sister that’s why we’re investigating him. We know the Barzinis and Tattaglias are hitting him up for protection money and fighting over who’s going to run the girls. We know Izzy’s got the goods on both of them in his safe, records of payoffs, bribes, receipts, blackmail etc. But we don’t know the combo and that’s where you’re going to help us doll.”
Just then Detective Bond’s partner came in. “He’s somewhat better and still with us and he still wants to talk to Candy, now, so we’d better vamoose before he croaks out.” They all three left in the ‘unmarked police car’ in which Candy finished dressing. At the hospital outside Izzy’s room Detective Bond took Candy aside and said, “Now we will just wait out here for you. You go in see what he wants but get the safe combo so we can get in it now. Otherwise since it's Saturday night, we can’t get a court order till Monday to open the safe and we need that evidence pronto, now tonight.” “And what if I don’t? What you going to do? Lean on me? I’ve been leaned on by sleazier scum bags than you two and I’m still standing.” “It’s either us or the mob, or should I say mobs. Pick your poison honey because one way or the other you’re going to get and cough up that information to someone.” The cops, the Barzinis, the Tattaglias, what’s the difference, she thought as she entered the room and went over to Izzy’s bed. She leaned over and hugged him. “Oh, Izzy I’m so sorry. How ya doing hon?” He pulled her closer to him and whispered in her ear. “I’ll do all the talking. This place is probably bugged. I’ll give you the safe’s combo and tell you what to do. Pay attention,” he said as he released her. “Doctors thought I wouldn’t make it at first,” he said. “Still could have another one, fiftyfifty odds, that ain’t so hot, that’s why they got me hooked up to all these machines. Tubes and dials and thingamajigs to monitor me so that these goddam doctors can charge me a goddam fortune. I tell ya this medical profession is a racket and if anybody should know a racket when he sees one it's me.” Candy smiled and giggled.” Oh Izzy, how can you joke at a time like this?” “Probably wondering where Marty is,” said Izzy. “So am I. My guess he’s out trying to make a deal with the Barzinis or Tattaglias, play both ends against the middle. He’s a good boy. He means well, but he’s dumber than a box of lox. When I get out of here first thing I’m going to do is get all my papers out of the safe and destroy them because if I don’t make it, and If Marty gets his hands on them, he won’t know how to use them. Probably get himself killed. That’s the only way I can protect him from himself by destroying those papers and getting rid of that loaded gun in there and all that cash. Ya understand what I’m saying?”
Candy looked him directly in the eye and nodded. “How’d it go tonight? Anyone guess your measurements?” “Oh, Izzy you know no one ever wins that scam.” “Ya, we don’t tell them even when someone gets them right do we. Don’t want to kill a good thing. Thank God only you and I know those numbers.” A doctor appeared at the door and gave them both a dirty look. “You better be going honey,” said Izzy. “I think I'm supposed to rest now.” She went over to him and gave him a goodbye hug and kiss. He pulled her close again and whispered in her ear. “You got it? You understand what I was telling you?” “Yes Izzy I understand exactly what you said, I’ll take care of it for you,” she whispered back. “Okay if I stop back tomorrow after lunch doc?” asked Candy. The doc nodded his consent. “See ya tomorrow Izzy,” she hollered as she left. Out in the hall Detective Bond grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Get it?” “You know damn well I didn’t. You heard it all. Now take me back to the club so I can get my car and go home.” The detectives drove her back. She got in her car and drove a couple of blocks, stopped and parked the car, got out and started walking back, keeping in the shadows, to the Hep Katz Klub. “Oh she got it alright,” said Detective Bond to his partner as they waited in the dark hiding in Isadore Katz’s office. “When she hugged him, twice, he gave her the combination. She’ll be back soon opening this safe here right in front of us taking out everything just as Izzy directed. When she does, we flick on the lights and grab the goodies.” Candy slowly opened the creaky door to Izzy’s office. With her flashlight guiding her way she tiptoed over to the safe. Holding the flashlight in one hand she dialed the combination with the other and pulled open the heavy metal door with both. It was all there just as Izzy told her it would be. One box full of papers, a grocery bag full of cash, and a small loaded pistol. Then the lights came on. She faked a gasp and let out a phony little shriek and grabbed
the pistol keeping it out of sight by keeping her hand still in the safe. “We’ll take it from here Miss Chocolate,” said Detective Bond. “No we’ll take it from here,” barked a voice from across the room as two thugs suddenly appeared from behind the divan and pointed their guns at Bond and his partner. “Barzini, Hell you doing here,” stuttered a surprised Bond. “Practicing Darwinism. Eliminating a couple of dumb cluck Tattaglias from the gene pool,” and with that the Barzinis plugged the two Tattaglias full of holes. They then walked over to the crumpled up bodies, put a bullet in the brains of each, just for good measure, holstered their pieces back in their vests and turned around to stare down the barrel of the pistol that Candy had pointed at them. She gave them each a bullet to the brain. Been a good day for the improvement of the gene pool chuckled Candy as she threw the gun in the cash bag, the cash bag into the box, and hauled the box and her tail to her car. She never stopped until she reached Dallas that fall of 1963. After two weeks she was firmly settled in her new environment. She had adapted to her surroundings, found a place to live and had a couple of job interviews. In fact she was on her way first thing Friday morning to one that was calling her back for a second time. “Good morning Candy.” “Good morning sir,” she politely replied. “I called Izzy. He and I go way back you know. By the way he’s doing fine now and says hello, wishes you well. He’s retired you know. Well nobody really is allowed to retire in our business. Anyway, he gave the business over to his son. He loves that boy and can’t help himself. Hell, he knows the kid will run it into the ground within six months, but he doesn’t care, just happy everyone’s alive. Says you did a good job for him. Says you were well worth what he paid you. Told me to hire you to strip and to play that game where no one has ever guessed the lucky numbers. You were good with numbers he told me.” Not that hard she said to herself, a stripper always knows her numbers. “So I’m hiring you. Here’s the contract,” he said pulling one out of his desk drawer and handing it to Candy. “Sign and date it please.” “Thank you, sir. Izzy said you were a great no nonsense down to earth type of guy to work for. I’ll be so glad to get back to work and into a routine. I don’t need any more drama in my life,” Candy signed the contract without reading it. “What’s the date?” “Oh date it Monday. That’s when you start the 25th.
“And thank you, thank you very much Mr. Rubenstein.” “Oh, you can call me Jack.”
Bryan Grafton's recent stories appear in The Fable Online issues 5,6, & 7 and Romance Magazine Vol. 3 #'s 3,5,6, 7 & 8
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