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### Legal Stuff

### The Raconteurs' Muse Literary Journal

### A Novel Group of Writers Production

### Smashwords Edition

### Copyright 2013 A Raconteurs' Muse

### Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends and associates. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoy this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover upcoming works by Central Oregon Community College Novel Group of Writers Creative Writing Group, and The Raconteurs' Muse Literary Journal.

### Thank you for your support.

### Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Fish Don't Know They Are Wet by Steven Jackson

Chapter Two: Hitler Loves Aunt Jemima by Steven Jackson

Chapter Three: A River Mount by Jake Connors

Chapter Four: My Toxic Child Written by Samuel J. Bass

Chapter Five: Homeless Story by Suzie Gumm

Chapter Six: The Avocado Kid by Samuel R. Burns

Chapter Seven: Shadow Under a Wave by Carly Ziegler
Chapter Eight: One Sided Phone Conversation by Anonymous
Chapter Nine: Road Trip by Kathryn Eng

Chapter Ten: Jason Allen Rigney by Jeremy Pierce

Chapter Eleven: Jason Allen Rigney II by Jeremy Pierce

Chapter Twelve: Scott's Story by Scott Schultz

Chapter Thirteen: There and Back Again by Larry Van Zandt

Chapter Fourteen: The Replacements by Larry Van Zandt

Chapter Fifteen: Devils Er A Samuel J. Bass Poem

### Introduction

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Raconteurs' Muse, the literary journal of Central Oregon Community College. The literary journal is an extension of A Novel Group of Writers, Central Oregon Community College's creative writing club.

The genesis of the literary journal is a conversation I had last spring with my academic advisor over the dearth of English and Writing classes offered by the college. Specifically, there is no creative writing program at the college. She explained to me, "Creative writing classes are a luxury at COCC." Furthermore, "If I desired a wider selection of liberal arts classes I should consider transferring schools."

Soon after our tête **-** à **-** tête I formed the writing club at COCC. Several months later, during a summer barbecue in my backyard a group of us started The Raconteurs' Muse Literary Journal. The journal took six months of toil to obtain funding approval from the ASCOCC, and publication authorization from the college administration.

June 18, 2013 the writing club will publish Raconteurs' Muse Volume II, titled _Chapters and Verses._ Volume II is a collection of manuscript first chapters, as well as short stories and musings created by members of the writing club and students at COCC and Oregon State University Cascade Branch.

Sometime toward the later part of July The Raconteurs' Muse and A Novel Group of Writers will request submissions of short stories, novellas, and novel length manuscripts for a Summer/Fall writing competition. The contest serves as a platform for several publishing projects the club is undertaking, and will announce details in the subsequent weeks.

Please like and follow A Novel Group of Writers and The Raconteurs' Muse via our social network venues for upcoming information and submission instructions.

<https://www.facebook.com/COCCWriters>

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Raconteurs-Muse/172470339568956

http://theraconteursmuse.com

Sincerely,

Steven Jackson

Managing Editor

### Chapter One

### Fish Don't Know They Are Wet

### by

### Steven Jackson

While Jill Scott's Crown Royal on Ice croons in the background, Jack rummages like a burglar through their suite-sized walk in closet.

Gal emerges from the bathroom wrapped in one of those scrumptious, sandwich thick, oversized white bath towels, and strolls across the bedroom to the stereo. She tenderly lifts the needle from Jill Scott's The Real Thing album, removes the vinyl from the turntable, and snaps the record over her knee in two pieces like a graham cracker. She leisurely tosses the halves in Jack's empty suitcase resting on the bed, and the rest of his Jill Scott albums out of the record cabinet and dumps them in the suitcase.

Gal cinches the bath towel tighter around her chest, tips across the bedroom's cool bamboo hardwood floor, and enters the closet. She loiters for a moment at the door before strategically stepping between Jack and the closet length dressing table. Gal deliberately runs her hand over Jack's Sapphire blue lightweight wool and silk blend suit draped across the end of the dressing table. To the best of her recollection the sumptuous fibers feel lush as making love. Gal side steps Jack and sits on the cedar bench athwart from him, and says, "It appears as if you are packing your replacement attire." She crosses her right leg over left and examines the bluish varicose veins creeping up her right calf.

Jack glances back at Gal, indifferent to whatever she said, well past any stilted pleasantries. He promptly returns to sorting through his jeans hanging in the rear of the closet.

"Your exodus from me," Gal scans the bright room, and attempts to overlook the assorted piles of jeans, socks, workout wear, and khaki slacks, before correcting herself, "I mean us, appears well under way." She anxiously pulls her towel tighter around her thighs, self-conscious that Jack will scrutinize her figure for flaws, "How young are you going to go this time?"

"I have more important things to do," Jack dismisses Gal with an aberrant tension in his words. He enunciates each syllable with scrupulous distinction, not even bothering to make eye contact, and resumes packing.

"Susan was twenty-eight years old," Gal raises her plaintive voice; incensed Jack is paying no heed to her, "Michelle was twenty-four or five I believe."

Jack again glances over his shoulder at Gal, wishing she would disappear, and continues packing. However, he is buoyed by the fact he will disappear within minutes.

"Thank goodness for summertime," Gal mutters. Her self-serving comments are muffled by the wall-to-wall clothes lining the closet like a Nordstrom store. She kneels down and flips through the stack of carefully folded, short-sleeve Ralph Lauren polo shirts, colorful like a roll of Lifesavers candy, "At least you won't have to concern yourself with boo's school night curfews, or escorting her to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance."

Jack remains smugly hushed, refusing to allow his wife to bait him with the anticipated pettiness. He climbs off the floor and carries the pile of shirts out into the bedroom, closely followed like an obedient dog by Gal. Jack drapes each individual shirt across the bed, meticulously folds each using some proprietary origami technique taught to him by his mother. He smoothes every wrinkle from the garment by hand, and carefully places the tightly folded shirt in the suitcase on the bed.

"What happened to the music?" Jack glances over at Gal standing at attention like a security guard stationed next to the bathroom door.

Gal shrugs unconvincingly and wanders into the bathroom to do damage control on her fragile psyche. She collapses into her dressing table chair and stares in her mirror at the apparition, unable to recognize any portion of self. She chokes down two Wellbutrin to help with the identification process. Gal is powerless to rationalize, no matter how much she compromises, apologizes, or lies to herself, that Jack doesn't want her anymore.

"Fuck it." Gal mutters, and returns to the bedroom. Mustering a final desperate gasp, she shimmies up next to Jack, audaciously peels the towel from her body, and allows it to fall to the floor. Gal slides Jack's suitcase over to the opposite side of the bed, and climbs up on the firm Serta mattress. Gal kicks several of Jack's shirts out of the way, and steadies herself on the bed as if surfing naked. Nevertheless, Jack continues folding his clothes with the veracity of a sweatshop worker, scarcely bothering with an upward glance.

"I'm five foot eight," Gal proclaims, deliberately massaging her hands up and down the front of her body, while peering down at Jack. She gently cups each breast in her hands, and continues, "You once liked that about me."

Jack breaths deep, and realizes the fight is on with his manhood. He ignores his appreciating erection, and folds with a newfound urgency.

"As you can see," Gal deliberately runs her hands up and down each sinewy leg, from upper thigh gradually down to her right ankle. Gal peers up at Jack, judging from the prolonged ellipses between her words she is anxious, "My legs are long, firm, and still look damn good for fifty-three."

Jack says nothing, and continues to fold his clothes.

"Of course," Gal extends her left leg level with her waist, and glances down at Jack. He remains poised; however, his folding technique deteriorates to stutters and spurts, "they may not be as limber as they once were."

"Of course," Jack mutters. His voice is thin, with scarcely a filament of emotion.

"Nevertheless, they get the job done." Gal drops her left leg, mollified she has Jack pondering her. Gal balances on the bed, and extends her arms like antiquated prop plane wings. She rests on her left foot, points her right leg at Jack, and meekly tells him, "I remember when you thought my long legs were sexy," She waves her French tipped toes at Jack, "and you couldn't wait to bend them back, and have me wearing my ankles for earrings." She lifts her wobbly leg overhead as if a drunken Cirque de Soleil performer, but steadies herself, "Wanna try that now mister?"

"Your body was never an issue," Jack says, while he rolls the weighty contemplation of ankles for earrings through his head. He clumsily folds a fuchsia hued Faconnable button down dress shirt as if it was a bath towel, and spaces on what to do with it when finished.

"What part of my body do you like?" Gal coos, unabashedly flaunting her fusty goods in Jack's face. Peering down at Jack, she sees him concealing his erection like an errant piss spot on the zipper of his khaki slacks.

"Everything," Jack stammers. Should he capitulate and fuck Gal, even he can't muster the shittiness to climb out of bed and walk out the door.

"For instance?" Gal presses the issue; certain Jack will submit to the power of the pussy.

"I like your calves, feet, Achilles heel, toes, as well as your ankles," Jack confesses. He arranges his unfolded shirts in three neat piles, and pats the sides of the heaps as if constructing a layered cake.

"Achilles Heel?" Gal repeats, mustering a tortured smirk.

"You heard me," Jack says thickly.

"Sadly," Gal anxiously nudges the pile of shirts with her foot, "my Achilles Heel is caring more about you than I do myself." She pinches a money green polo shirt off Jack's shirt pile with her toes.

"Where are you going with that?" Jack glances up at Gal, and decides against snatching it from between her toes.

"Where would I go?" Gal answers while continuing to lift the shirt in the air, and drops it to the bed. "Even now, while I watch you pack up and walk out as if it means nothing." Carefully pinching a white polo shirt between her toes, Gal lifts it high in the air, waving it as if her surrender flag, and places the shirt on Jack's smooth pate.

"That Achilles Heel thing is another exag---," Jack starts to speak, but is unsure where and why he should place his concentration.

"Like Jacob wrestled with God," Gal's voice cracks, "I am struggling not to beg---,"

"It's not that serious," Jack says. He refuses to elaborate, or look directly at Gal.

"Just like Jacob," Gal pleads for alms of affection like a mendicant," the struggle will cripple me."

"Okay," Jack grunts, surrendering his inclination of challenging every word out of Gal's mouth, and embracing less is more here.

"You take any remaining modicum of my dignity and self-respect from the past eleven years," Gal takes the shirt, folds it, and places it in Jack's suitcase, "and place it in your suitcase as carefully as these shirts."

"Gal" Jack says, "I told you earl---,"

"Take a look at my ass," Gal apologetically interrupts Jack, and turns away from him. She deliberately runs her hands across her backside, "I know gravity is having its way with me."

Jack continues packing, fighting the inclination to glance up at Gal, while shielding his erection with another shirt.

"I work out on the elliptical machine an hour every morning," Gal rambles, her desperation seeping through, "I do lunges, squats, and workout on the bull for another hour." Gal flexes her quad muscles, glancing over at Jack, "but you already know this."

"You won't let me forget."Jack abruptly snaps, wishing Gal would shut up, and go downstairs and take her frustrations out on the elliptical machine.

"I would practice yoga with you if you let me." Keeping her back toward Jack, Gal composes herself, before imploring, "I'm standing here, physically, as well as emotionally naked to you."

"None of this is necessary," Jack explains, without peering up at Gal, "you asked me to leave, so I am."

"Don't do this Jack," Gal pleads, her voice barely audible, "I have no problem telling you, I do everything to please you." Turning to face Jack, Gal glances down at her flaccid breasts, sighing, "I'm afraid of growing old alone."

Jack's head remains bent, curbing his attention as well as indignity from Gal. He places a final shirt in his overstuffed suitcase, before glancing behind him at the wall of record albums. Scanning the vast collection, Jack wonders how he will go about taking the record collection later.

Where will he store them? Also, how and where to move his library of books, file cabinets, and research material stored downstairs in the den, and half the garage. Jack ambivalently fidgets with his suitcase latches, unable to secure them shut.

"What the hell is it with this?" Jack grumbles, incapable of squeezing his brimming suitcase shut. Jack opens the bloated luggage, and carefully sorts through the clothing. Jack reaches the bottom of his suitcase, and removes the broken Jill Scott record, as well as her entire album discography. Jack sighs and glances across at Gal. He tosses the records on the bed, and squeezes his suitcase shut.

"This is my favorite one of your shirts," Gal plucks the size extra-large dark mustard colored Faconnable shirt from the pile on the bed that failed to make the Peter Pan Syndrome traveling squad, "I'm assuming that's why it wasn't packed."

"Didn't even cross my mind," Jack shrugs, adept at lying with a botox face, and unwavering words.

"I'm not sure if your ambivalence makes it better or worse," Gal puts the shirt on, buttons it up to her breasts, and sulks over to the wall of albums. She flips through the covers one by one until she locates Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Gal reverently places the platter on the turntable, cranks the volume on _Speak to Me_ , and flips the jacket to the floor beside the other suitcases.

"If you like all my attributes," Gal raises her voice over the warbling of Pink Floyd, "Why did you stop making love to me?" Gal sways to the psychedelic intro of her favorite song while she wanders the bedroom and gently caresses the front of the orphaned shirt. Gal enjoys the abrasive lightly starched cotton chafing against her erect nipples. Meanwhile, Jack remains at the foot of the bed, single mindedly sorting through a pile of socks and underwear, and allows Gal's question to die from neglect.

"Let's affix some training wheels to the subject." Gal realizes Pink Floyd will get back together and tour as the opening act for Justin Bieber before Jack responds to her question, "We need to remove love from the subject."

"What subject?" Jack asks, glancing up from his grindstone, "I didn't know you had asked me a question."

"We both know love hasn't been part of our relationship for some time now." Gal grudgingly owns up to the distasteful reality of their life together. She trudges across the room to the stereo, turns down the volume, and rephrases the question, "Why don't you want to fuck me?

"Why are you asking?"Jack slows his folding, "You have to..."

"I'm not talking about making love," Gal interrupts Jack to clarify her question, "but raw fucking."

Gal pauses when the alarm clocks in the beginning of the song Time snaps her to a jarring reality. She experiences the sensation of the truth with a concussion like certainty. Gal has stooped to begging, panhandling, and her pussy is the tin cup. Her weather beaten cardboard sign with the rain streaked faded Sharpie writing should read _; Haven't been fucked in over six months, will work for cock. God Bless._

Jack lugs his suitcase across the bedroom and sets it next to the door. Lingering for a moment, he considers Gal's question. Jack glances nonchalantly at her loitering amongst the suitcases still wearing his Faconnable shirt. Once upon a time, Jack loved to see Gal slink around the house wearing his dress shirts. Gal would sport some Jimmy Choo heels, with LA PERLA underneath, and no inhibitions. So long ago, Jack has difficulty recalling the last time, and when he stopped caring.

"For the last year or maybe two," Jack ambles over and turns down the volume. He is swathed in a mellow7 UP bottle green glow from the vacuum tubes of the Shindo stereo system, and confesses his good, good bullshit, "I have this gnawing sensation as if I settled for less when I married you." He glances down at Gal perched amongst the suitcases; and wonders what else he should bring with him, headphones, vitamins, yoga mat, "I have this overwhelming sense that I can do better than you."

"Can you hurt me any deeper?" Gal screams, staring up from the empty suitcase in front of her, "Is that your objective here?"

"I know the tongue finds the hurt tooth," Jack peers down at Gal perched on the floor, aware this is devastating to her, but nevertheless continues, "however, you crave honesty, and this is as good a starting point as any."

Gal ceases bobbing her head to the saxophone solo halfway through the song, and gingerly climbs to her feet. She clutches Jack's shirt she is wearing by the front button side and hole side with each hand. Glancing over her shoulder at Jack loitering next to the stereo, their eyes briefly convene just as Gal rips the shirt apart at the chest, sending buttons shooting in every direction.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jack's mouth drops as he watches what is left of his one hundred fifty dollar dress shirt slide off Gal's back, and settle on the floor, reborn as a pricey dust rag.

"Easy come, easy go," Gal shrugs, kicking the scraps across the floor.

Jack realizes this isn't going to be a harmless exit

"Just like your treatment of me." Gal strolls into the closet, naked except for her shimmering spiked-heels. She returns lugging an armful of slacks Jack had earmarked to pack. She arbitrarily dumps them in one of the suitcases, while Jack watches in a hushed seethe. Gal returns to the closet, scoops his workout clothes, socks, underwear, and several hoodies off the dressing table.

"I don't need your assistance," Jack implores. Nevertheless, Gal wobbles across the floor with a heaping armful of clothes, and drops them in one of the final two suitcases.

"I love your long tall six foot five athletic physique," Gal says on her way back to the closet. She glances over at Jack, still paralyzed next to the stereo. Gal retrieves several pairs of socks and another hoodie that missed the suitcase. She tosses them inside, and tells Jack, "I'm jealous, that at forty-nine your skin remains chocolate smooth, without one wrinkle or crease."

Jack watches Gal; certain her emotions are as unsteady as her last stroll across the floor. Having watched Waiting to Exhale, he is worried somewhat about his clothes going up in flames.

"Sorry about these," Gal says, bending down and tossing several pair of boxer shorts that missed the open suitcase on the pile of clothes.

"Listen to me," Jack snaps, his jaw tense, "I can do this myself."

"You are more witty than funny," Gal says, ignoring Jack's instruction and returning to the closet.

"Gal!" Jack calls after her, taking several exasperated steps toward the closet. He sighs, "Nothing."

"I always played along as if you were the next great whatever," Gal shouts from inside the walk in closet the clicking of her heels against the hardwood floor echoes as she goes about gathering Jack's belongings with the efficiency of a pro. "You are almost as smart as I am."

"Almost," Jack repeats, unwilling to take Gal to task on her claim. She schools Jack nightly in Jeopardy, understands all David Lynch's movies, and does the New York Times Crossword in pen.

"You have this supercilious edge to you woman find irresistible," Gal continues rustling around inside the closet, "like heroin to a junkie." Gal's voice grows louder, and she emerges from the closet with an armful of his summer shorts, underwear, and several pair of his khaki slacks. She meanders across the floor inelegantly, as if a boat unmoored, and dumps the final pile of clothes in the remaining suitcase, and stops.

"Heroin, should I consider that a good thing?" Jack asks, sorting what clothes remain on the bed.

"However, I detest that you are a malicious, deceitful, impious, bastard of a husband," Gal dabs at the perspiration on her brow with one of Jack's t-shirts from the suitcase. She drops the undershirt back in the luggage, and shuts and latches each piece. She picks two toiletry bags sitting in the middle of the floor, walks over to Jack and hands them to him.

"I said I don't want your help," Jack shouts, and snatches the toiletry bags from Gal's hands.

"I'm not deaf," Gal bawls. She is close enough to slap Jack's face, but fights the temptation, "I heard you the first time."

"So act accordingly," Jack says.

"I wanted to divorce you a long time ago," Gal removes her wedding ring and band, and wanders the bedroom staring at the diamond keepsakes. "But I was afraid no one else would ever love me." She returns to the suitcases, and lingers over the luggage, "However, when I realized you didn't love me it didn't matter anymore. I am only with you because I don't want to be alone. I don't feel guilty about this because you suck as a husband."

"What are you doing with your rings?" Jack asks, wondering if Gal beat him to the punch and already filed for divorce. What if she flipped the script on him, and he'll have to pay Gal spousal support?

"What does it matter?" Gal ponders how effortlessly the jewelry came off, and vacillates as to why she is fighting the urge to drop the rings in Jack's suitcase.

"Appears to me you are quitting," Jack searches for something to occupy his attention, and starts to straighten the duvet on the bed

"I'm not the quitter." Gal trudges over, removes the corner of the duvet from Jack's hand, and yanks it off the bed, sending his folded clothes and Jill Scott albums tumbling through the air and to the floor like autumn leaves. "Now who is getting shit twisted?"

"One of us has a mess to clean up," Jack glares at Gal, "and it's not me."

"No one expects you to soil your hands with menial labor," Gal wraps her naked body with the duvet, like an oversized fig leaf. She kicks Jack's shirts out of her way and paces back and forth across the bedroom.

"I gotta go," Jack snatches the toiletry bags off the floor and slithers into the bathroom to pack his lotions and potions, "I'm not doing this."

"You mean gotta quit?" Gal says, while trudging behind Jack into the bathroom, and collapses in her chair.

Jack saunters over to his dressing table, "I said what I meant."

Gal mutely sorts through the assorted bottles and containers on her dressing table until she finds her bottle of Wellbutrin. She shakes out eight of the 150-milligram pills, aware she can't procure unconsciousness quite so easily, and swallows four.

"You always assume to know what I'm thinking," Jack says, "That make the ass out of you axiom fits quite well."

"You are more than adept at making an ass out of yourself, thank you very much," Gal says while chewing the four pills without water, voiding the time release. Gal slumps down in her chair, draping the duvet tighter around her body until she looks like a burgundy and tan burrito. She stares across her breadth of beauty products into the mirror, seeing her insubstantial, ethereal reflection, like a crinkled paper bag, once full of substance.

"In the kitchen you were adamant about ending our marriage," Jack says, his mind miles away at some arbitrary happy hour. He deliberately places his cologne in his toiletry bag one by one, as if packing fine china.

"Are you sure that was me ending the marriage?" Gal asks, and checks the label on the medicine bottle for refill instructions.

"I'm cool with your decision, no hard feelings," Jack doesn't bother glancing up at Gal while telling her, "I hope we can be friends."

Gal glares across the bathroom at Jack, figuring she'll call for a refill tomorrow, after she finds a locksmith, and retains an attorney.

"My Mother schooled me decades ago," Jack continues, so enamored with his own words he fails to notice Gal's lack of response, "that nothing lasts forever except forgetting."

"Your mother schooled me as well," Gal reclines in her chair, staring in the mirror at a life mislaid, "she warned me you are a shit in shining armor."

"My mother didn't say that." Jack protests. He stands up from his chair, glances around his dressing table, making sure everything is packed. The comment stings him because shit in shining armor is what his mother called his father. Jack's relationship with father is complicated.

"Ask her when you move home," Gal shrugs, "I didn't pull that out of my ass."

"In relationships everyone assumes their union is bulletproof," Jack says, raising his voice to be heard over the opening and closing the drawers of his dressing counter, checking for anything he may have missed, "and nothing can wound their love.

"I was never secure enough in our relationship to be afforded the luxury of bulletproof." Gal spits, detesting Jack's self-righteous pontifications. "It was all on my shoulders to protect our love, and I caught the force of every blow."

"All our bullshit I love you forever pontifications," Jack continues, strictly for his own edification.

"All those bullshit I will love you forever pontifications." Gal scoffs like an atheist at church, "I believed in those unicorns."

"Inevitably, the bullet arrives, the death of that unicorn," Jack wanders over next to the bathtub, checking the bottles of shampoo, body wash, and conditioner, "and one partner realizes they no longer believe."

"I took that bullet," Gal nods, "point blank, just like an assassination."

"I assume that's the Wellbutrin talking," Jack dismisses Gal's metaphor, but realizes she is right.

"Just go," Gal shouts, unwrapping from the duvet, as if a mummy shedding his bandages, Gal frees her arms, and shoves Jack. He stumbles back, crashing into her vanity table, sending Gal's beauty products spilling to the floor.

"I will." Jack glances down at the scattered toiletries, and allows them to remain where they fell.

"You are perfect, don't sweat it," Gal pats Jack on the hand, "I assume all responsibility for our dysfunction."

"Our dysfunction?" Jack blurts out angrily, annoyed and bemused by Gal's remark, "I don't have any dysfunction."

"What part didn't you understand?" Gal asks, and glances down at her toiletries scattered across the floor, "I confirmed your ability to walk on water."

"You believe I have some sort of dysfunctions?" Jack folds his arms and glares stolidly at Gal as if he does not see her, or has ceased to recognize her existence.

"Regardless of how shitty you treat me," Gal murmurs, so hushed it forces Jack for once to concentrate on her words, "I constructed my matchstick house atop your scorching sun, each time expecting a dissimilar outcome. I would like to end our relationship and be without shame; however, I have never been strong enough to let you go."

"You know," Jack begins to offer up his customary deflection of guilt, but for once, removes his boot from her back.

"I want to feel as if I can hold my head up among the shameless," Gal moans, finally giving way to her tears. Glancing at Jack next to her, she is weak and willing, prepared to again take the force of the blow, "I would give anything at this moment to be ignorant."

"Why would anyone wish for that?" Jack asks, lamenting the words tumbling from his mouth.

"Then I would be oblivious to the depths of ignorance to which I will once more descend," Gal glances up at Jack, wiping her tears with a corner of the duvet, "and beg you to stay."

"You labeled me damaged earlier this morning," Jack reminds Gal as he climbs to his feet, and straightens his clothes, "The fish who doesn't know he is wet."

Gal glares at their reflection in the mirror, sick that she is willing to squander further emotion on him.

"I don't doubt that is how you have viewed me for the longest time," Jack attempts to check his watch, but notices Gal is gazing at his reflection in her mirror. He figures two more minutes and evacuate.

"Goodbye Jack." Gal sighs, partially out of relief, dabbing at her tears with her knuckle, "Get help when you leave, but leave."

"You saw me as wrecked, like the bicycle sitting in the garage with the bent rim and two flat tires." Jack's words are tinged with anger, resenting the fact Gal doesn't see him as perfect, "Broken like a promise, exhausted like hope."

"Broken like a promise," Gal scoffs, wondering if Jack is biding his time, changing his mind, unsure how she feels about the possibility, "until death do us part is a promise, a vow."

"Every morning you roll over in bed, and survey at me with bitter contemptuous eyes," Jack coolly snarls. He exacts his castigation by lingering, torturing, twisting the knife one final time, "I could hear the components of the scales shift as you weighed the pros and cons in your head, 'Can I fix him, is he worth the effort?"

"I never considered that subject until several minutes ago," Gal says, with a sense of bliss, "now I can consider nothing else."

"I'm sure you thought, fuck it, I'll pack Jack up and send him to the Salvation Army or Goodwill," Jack seethes. He surveys the bathroom one last time for anything missed, "at the least, maybe I can get a tax deduction for my troubles."

"Does that assurance allow you to sleep at night?" Gal mutters, resolute in her endeavor not to beg. Jack picks up his bag, and passes behind Gal, dragging his hand across her shoulders. Clod hopping out of the bathroom, Jack treads as if unconcerned with disturbing slumbering dogs.

"I lied to you about the orgasm, or lack thereof," Jack says. He turns back at the bathroom door, and glances at Gal, slumped at her vanity.

Gal stares at her mirror through Visine starved eyes, "I never would have guessed."

"For that I apologize," Jack shuffles back and forth, maintaining the momentum in the direction of gone. He leans against the doorway, his pseudo contrition more of a salt than salve.

"Alright," Gal cries, her tears unable to wash away the bitterness, "what would you like me to do with that?"

"You know," Jack takes a step forward, but stops, "so often we claim that our heart has been broken, our trust compromised."

"Please, just go," Gal pleads, curled up like a scared bug, unable to avoid the pitiless blow.

"When in actuality," Jack throws his final punch with an insincere tenderness, "it is merely our egos."

"You have no idea how I feel," Gal recoils even further in her protective orb unable to muster the fortitude to look directly at Jack, "you never have." The pain of hitting bottom gathers in Gal's mouth like a sick person's vomit. She mutters as if it hurts to talk, her face long and hopeless, "My heart was never a priority to you."

"That's not true," Jack halfheartedly swallows the lies that rise in his throat like floodwater.

"I read somewhere," Gal says between whimpers, timidly dipping her head in Jack's direction, "maybe I didn't read it, who knows at this point. That the two greatest teachers in life are repetition and shame." Surrendering, Gal sits up and glances in her mirror. She leans forward, resting on her forearms to get closer to the reflection, or further from the reality. "I have sat at the front of the class, while you repeatedly attempted to school me about shame." The mirage, the illusion of Jack, Gal reaches out to touch, knowing it is more real than the man behind her, "For some reason I never quite understood, and needed to come back and repeat the class for eleven years." Running her tear-dampened fingers across the cool mirror glass, Gal whispers, "Sadly, the only thing I have learned is, you will be teaching the same class again soon." Gal attempts a feeble smile; however, she settles for making the effort, "Hey, it's been eleven years, evidently your program does work; I mastered shameless. How is that for making chicken shit out of lemons?" Gal wipes her nose on the duvet and contrives a smile.

"You are right," Jack checks his watch while nodding his head in agreement, he should have been out the door five minutes ago, "your feelings were never my priority."

"Finally, the truth." Gal says

"Nevertheless, if you are expecting me to believe this scene is all about the anguish of our love. That only our protracted, fruitless, problematical love can inflict this kind of hurt, you are the one in denial." Anxious to be on his way, Jack swings his toiletry bags front to back, anticipating the moments before celebration like a child reading the Sears Wish Book in November, awaiting Christmas morning.

"Please Jack, just---," Gal attempts to musters a supplication. She sits ruddy-faced, shrunken to the dwarf like proportions of her heart.

"You want someone that I am not," Jack interrupts Gal, and takes several conscious steps toward the door, "I have been in denial about this for years." Jack checks his watch, and removes his car keys from his pocket. Jangling the keys like an alarm, he returns to the bathroom door and leans against the entryway, "However, let me say this about denial. How it defends and allows me to imagine what is there, actual is not there. How it shields the status quo, breathes life to all our bullshit and contradictions. How it keeps everything copacetic, however; precarious." Jack glances at his watch again, not caring about Gal witnessing his impatience, "For a while anyway, I believe both of us were guilty of milking denial for emotional sustenance."

"Don't tell---," Gal rises to object but no longer possesses the strength or will. She realizes her pain is commensurate with Jack's pettiness.

"Furthermore, I believe we were both accomplices in denial," Jack hastily talks over Gal, and continues, his words blunt, set to not only meet her objection, but to seek it out, "by accepting it to protect the frail state of our recondite relationship."

Breaking from her duvet cocoon, Gal emerges as a stillborn moth. Snatching the bottle of Wellbutrin off her bathroom counter, she rattles the seven remaining pills like a restless baby. Gal considers taking the pills, before setting the brown bottle down on the counter. She leans back in her chair, pulls the duvet around her shoulders, shuts her eyes, and daydreams of being the woman that Jack wants but can't have, instead of the one he has, but doesn't want. Gal mutters one last time, "Good bye Jack." Gal watches Jack with an anguished gaze; she opens her mouth to speak but is now slack of words, unattended tears on her nose and cheek.

Jack turns and walks toward the door, throwing the straps to his toiletry bags over his shoulder.

Gal unravels the duvet from around her body, rises up out of her chair, her foremost instinct is to pursue. However, she slumps back into her chair, listens to the bedroom door squeak open, and quietly close.

### Authors Bio

Steven Jackson is the Managing Editor of Raconteurs' Muse. He is a writer of both fiction and creative nonfiction. Steven is a Norman Mailer Community College Writing Award 2012 Semi-Finalist for _Fish Don't Know They Are Wet._

### Chapter Two

Hitler Loves Aunt Jemima

### by

### Steven Jackson

_F_ _u_ _c_ _k_ _y_ _ou n_ _i_ _g_ _g_ _a_ _, with_ _y_ _o_ _ur_ _S_ _ickle_ _C_ _e_ _ll_ _dise_ _a_ _s_ _e_ _._ _F_ _u_ _c_ _k_ _y_ _ou_ _n_ _i_ _gg_ _a_ _, with_ _y_ _o_ _u_ _r_ _s_ _is_ _t_ _a_ _on h_ _e_ _r kn_ _ee_ _s._ _F_ _u_ _c_ _k_ _y_ _ou n_ _i_ _g_ _g_ _a_ _, suckin'_ _dick_ _f_ _or_ _c_ _ra_ _c_ _k, w_ _h_ _i_ _l_ _e_ _y_ _our momma gettin'_ _n_ _ick_ _e_ _ls_ _makin' a livin' on her back. P_

Father sits at the head of the elongated dining room table for our Sunday family dinner. The room is adorned with various religious pictures, artifacts and statues. A wall sized mural of the Last Supper is positioned behind Father like a billboard advertisement for Jesus.

Mother sits at the opposite end of the dinner table from Father, and my youngest sister Danielle sits on Mother's right side. My sister Lynsay who is two years older than me sits to Mother's left. Lynsay moved out of the house immediately after high school graduation. I remember her packing her car while still wearing her cap and gown. She moved to Eugene, enrolled at University of Oregon, changed her last name to Obama, and stayed away from the family without a word for four years.

Our customary Sunday meal consists of Father's favorite food: barbecued ribs, which Father used to prepare himself starting just after sunrise. He parboils the ribs before patiently grilling them on low heat for hours, and slathers the slabs with his secret homemade barbecue sauce until the mouthwatering meat melts off the bone. Now his presidential campaign consumes every waking moment of Father's day, so he hired some Negro named JJ from Meridian, Mississippi to do the grilling.

Mother still prepares the side dishes from scratch: collard greens, black eyed peas, butter milk corn bread, traditional and vegetarian Macaroni and Cheese with the crumbly crust, cole slaw, yams, sweet potato pie for dessert, and headache sweet original red Kool-Aid. We argue at every Sunday dinner whether red is the color of the Kool-Aid or the flavor.

"Do you realize that until I attended college I never had a conversation with a Black person?" Lynsay tells Father, between bites of vegetarian mac and cheese, "That's eighteen years of my life; isolated and deprived of an important segment and voice of our society." Lynsay sets her fork down and picks at the corn bread with her fingers. Lynsay always eats like an anorexic when she is upset, and continues with Father, "You and Mother sequestered us from Black people in some bizarre form of parental apartheid. I'm surprised I was allowed to wear black clothes."

Mother dulcetly chimes in, "Sweetheart, we only wanted what was best for all of you," and primly slices her rib meat off the bone with a knife and fork, "You were raised safe, loved, and aware of your position in the world. That's all any parent could dream for their children, isn't it?" Mother glances around the table sincerely looking to her children for affirmation of her parenting decisions.

"It was an illusory existence," Lynsay says. She breaks a corner off her corn bread, and dips it in the collard green liquor pooled on her plate. "Contrary to popular belief, there are Black people in the world, our country."

"That's part of the problem." I tell Lynsay.

Danielle strains to follow the conversation, but can't read our lips fast enough.

"If you look closely," Lynsay says, "you might find several living here in Terrebonne."

"Outside of the occasional handy man, or domestic, there's not a dark face within miles of our neighborhood," I tell Lynsay.

Father tosses a naked rib bone back into his plate like clinking spare change in a beggar's cup. We all anticipate Father making some profound comment, but he merely stifles a belch, licks the spicy barbecue sauce off his manicured fingers and gulps his tumbler of iced red Kool-Aid.

"I feel as if I was an animal raised in the circus," Lynsay continues. "Thank God I escaped after eighteen years of captivity."

Father wrinkles his brow in thought, struggling to assess Lynsay's statements, and says, "Growing up in an all white community felt like captivity too you?" Father stifles another belch, and calmly removes a toothpick from the Black Sambo toothpick holder at the center of the table. He nonchalantly picks the pork remnants out of his impeccably veneered white teeth.

I also remove a toothpick and dig at the rib meat lodged between my teeth. The toothpick holder matches the Aunt Jemima Salt Shaker, and Uncle Moses Pepper Shaker sitting side by side on the dining room table like our personal minstrel show.

"I was unprepared for the undomesticated world," Lynsay says, "because all I knew were the tricks my trainers taught me." She scrutinizes the ancient Sambo toothpick holder, with its coal black skin, exaggerated features, red jacket, and blue trousers, and continues, "I knew nothing of life's nuances, or more importantly, understanding and embracing people different than me."

Lynsay sets the toothpick holder next to the similarly blackface, plump lipped and bug-eyed Gollywog napkin holder Grandma Pierce gave Mother and Father as an anniversary present last year. Lynsay picks up the salt and pepper shakers, examines them, and sets the figurines down in disgust as far away from her as possible, and feverishly wipes her hands with a napkin as if they are contaminated.

Father plucks several ribs from the warming platter and makes quick work of them. He wags a meatless bone in his hand back and forth, and preaches, "The undeniable truth is there are proportionately fewer intelligent Negroes than Whites in the United States, and in my opinion this indisputable fact also confirms comparable Negro inferiority. These conclusions are inescapable, as are the social consequences."

Mother cuts a beseeching glance at Lynsay, pleading with her to let this go. Lynsay predictably ignores Mother.

Danielle signs to mother asking what is going on, but is ignored.

"This is an important point," Father gently taps his water glass with a butter knife requesting our full attention, "so please pay listen." He sets his knife down and rests his manicured right hand on the Bible next to his plate. Satisfied all eyes are on him, Father continues, "As I said, if Negroes are collectively inferior to Whites, the possibility of a truly integrated and equal society is not realistic, no matter whom the President is, or what he looks like."

"Strictly for my edification," Lynsay begins, as she fondles the collard greens on her plate as if a kindergartener finger painting. She ignores Mother's pleas, licks the collard juice from her fingers, and lets loose on Father, "Allow me get this straight, no matter what, Black people will continue to..."

"All of you stop and listen." Father interrupts Lynsay, immune to her livid slings and arrows. He leans into the table and points at Lynsay with his rib bone, "This is for the enlightenment of each one of you." Father snatches his Bible off the table in one hand, and waves his rib bone like a magic wand in the other hand, casting a spell over the family, and barks, "Negroes, coloreds, or whatever they want to be called this week as a group possesses a lower I.Q. than almost every other racial group across the board."

Lynsay attempts to interject, but Father talks over her, "Scientists proved decades ago that a low I.Q. directly correlates with higher rates of crime, welfare, poverty, and illegitimate births." Father tosses the rib bone on his plate, takes another from the warming platter, and sucks the meat off while talking, "Pragmatic lucidity dictates that Negroes will never overcome these pathologies, so consequently, we must rid our society of this malignancy, or risk additional infectivity. As the dominant race, we can no longer allow this cultural effluence to endure. We must exercise our position of superiority."

Mother raps on her water glass with her butter knife before pointing the utensil at Father, and demanding, "Drop the bone, and this dinnertime bully pulpit."

Father tosses the bone to his plate like a criminal instructed by the police to drop his weapon. I gotta go talk to Jen. This is a good time to make a break from the table, maybe fake a need to pee and sneak out of the kitchen service door.

Mother glares down the table at Father, "Dinner is not the place for a convention speech."

As usual Father ignores Mother, and continues to address us, "In 1729 Jonathan Swift suggested in his essay, _A Modest Proposal_ , that the poor children of Ireland be sold as..."

Mother shrieks, "I said enough already!" She frantically bangs on her water glass with the butter knife until it shatters. Water and pieces of glass spew across the table. Lynsay grabs napkins to mop up the water, and I carefully pick the glass shards off the table, while Mother howls at Father, "I mean it."

Much to Mother's consternation, Father ignores her and continues on, louder and stronger, "A young, healthy, well-nourished child is at one year old, a moist, delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled."

Mother throws her hands in the air, and gives it all to God, "Jesus take the wheel, I give up. What am I supposed to do to make my husband understand?" She shakes her head in frustration, "Lord give me patience, for better or worse."

Lynsay plucks the final pieces of glass shards from the table and places them on her plate of tepid food. Father strolls over and stands next to Lynsay, imposing as he towers over her at six foot six, "This is not a joke, but a malignancy that ails our country," Father says. He waves his Bible at all of us cowering around the table, and says in his commanding voice, "Jonathan Swift had vision, he was a revolutionary for his time, and he was an intellectual, a fantasist, and simultaneously a realist. We need this kind of pragmatic wisdom and leadership in these apocalyptic days of Obama."

I stand and applaud, "Tell it Father, tell it!" Mother catches me by the tail of my shirt and yanks me back to my chair.

"Sit down fool," Mother snaps.

Danielle waves at Mother to get her attention.

With my dopehead attention span of a hamster, I forgot about Jen.

Father continues, "Adolf Hit..." Lynsay's bowed head pops up from the table like a jack-in-the-box.

Lynsay hastily interrupts Father, "Were you about to say Adolf Hitler?" She shrieks, "Father please, I have sat here listening to you with a modicum of respect for the last two hours.

"Thank you." Father places his arm around Lynsay, interrupting her, and coolly says, "Wait, listen to me for..."

"I held my tongue, and allowed your nescience to pass uncontested as fact. Lynsay bounces up from her seat, "However, not this one," She wags her finger in Father's face," I know you are not about to praise Adolf Hitler."

"Please lis..." Father attempts to regain control of the discussion; however, Lynsay is having none of it.

Lynsay waves Father away from her as if he smells, "Father, you cannot rationalize Adolf Hitler." Lynsay interjects, not allowing any room for his hustle and flow to continue another sentence, "I find your attempt to justify Adolf Hitler's actions and philosophies morally reprehensible."

Father breaks out his faux politician's smile rests his hand on Lynsay's shoulder and attempts to explain. Lynsay tenses up as if a cramp has over taken her, and shrugs Father's hand off her. I wonder why Lynsay bothered to come back.

"Adolf Hitler." Father's tone is now pointed, his words more prone to Ginsu than bludgeon. "The world cannot deny Hitler was a realist, with a clear and definitive vision; he was a great leader, who was willing to make tough choices in a difficult time."

Lynsay drops into her chair, too tired to fight this battle she thought ended when she walked out four years ago. "Hitler exterminated millions of ..."

"Allegedly," Father interrupts. "Allegedly."

Lynsay curls up in her chair, and wonders if she should try driving back to Eugene, or get a hotel in town. Either way she is leaving, and only returning to attend Father's funeral.

Father kneels down on one knee beside Lynsay, and says, "When you make mention to these Semitic accusations, please preface them with alleged." Father leaves Lynsay's side and stalks the dining room, his tremendous bass voice booms off the walls as he shifts into preacher mode, "Hitler's transgression is not the alleged extermination of a scant number of Jews in the Holocaust fable."

Mother takes a deep breath, sits back in her chair, and whispers a prayer.

Right now, I would do anything to be upstairs smoking a bowl.

"The fact that this alleged transgression prevents an intelligent discussion of eugenics and the creation of a master race is the real crime against humanity." Father drives his point through our heads with the subtlety of a lobotomy, "Hitler would illuminate this nation to the harsh and practical realization that the old, weak, poor, and cognitively challenged must be exterminated, and that Negroes and whites cannot coexist."

Mother tosses her napkin down on the table, and marches over to Father, "Any more of this talk and I will exterminate you."

Danielle gently taps on her glass of Kool-Aid with her butter knife, and signs, "I saw Jen at the mall today, when I went with Brittany, Terra, and Terra's Mom."

Mother reads Danielle's signing out loud for Father.

So that's what the little shit was working with in the kitchen earlier, I knew the schemer was up to some dubious shit. I dish up more greens, and Father pats me on the back on the way to his chair.

"Jen is a fine young lady." Father says, easing back into his chair, and dabbing at beads of perspiration on his forehead. "She is the best thing that ever happened to you."

I nod in agreement and force the lukewarm fork full of greens in my mouth. I haven't heard from Jen in twenty-four hours, that's not a beautiful thing.

"There is nothing like a woman who will stand by you through thick and..." Father stops to reconsider his conclusion, "Did something happen, Jen is usually here for Sunday dinner?"

I signal to Father my mouth is full and feebly circumvent the questions about Jen's absence. I cut a glance at Danielle fidgeting in her chair and grinning from ear to ear, bursting at the seams with toxic information. Danielle knows some dirt, and I'm sure I don't want to be sitting at this table when she regurgitates it all over me.

Mother returns to her seat and signs to Danielle, "Did Jen mention anything about coming to dinner tonight?"

I'm gonna kill the little shit.

Danielle breaks out in mute shits and giggles, "We saw Jen was with this Negro guy at the mall." She is barely able to control herself, and signs at the speed of Dizzy Rascal rapping, "He looks like the Negro guy off that stupid Grey's Anatomy spin-off.

Mother turns to look at me, and down the table at Father, who doesn't yet know what is going on.

Lynsay sits up in her chair, "Negro guy from Grey's Anatomy?" and reads Danielle's signing, "Taye Diggs?"

"Taye what?" Father asks, "Can't anyone interpret this stuff?"

"Terra's mom wouldn't let us go over and talk to Jen," Danielle continues signing, her finger moving like she is having a seizure, "Terra's mom was checking him out, I could tell."

Mother explains to Father what Danielle signed.

Why didn't I fake needing to pee, and break out while I could? Getting away from this table without experiencing the wrath of Father will be about as difficult as shooting pool with a rope. I drop my eyes and reach for more food to pile on my plate; if I can't leave the table, I better stay occupied.

I reach for the warming platter of ribs sitting in front of him, but Father snatches me by the wrist. He jerks me out of my seat and pulls me onto the dinner table toward him. Father glares at me as if I failed another piss test, and snarls, "Phineas, is there something we should be made aware of regarding your girlfriend?"

Father releases me, and I shrivel up in my seat like a swimmer's cock in cold water. I fear Father as I fear God himself, and I know there will shortly be hell to pay. My immediate plan is to avoid his glare and transfix on my plate of cold collards, petrified mac and cheese, and a pile of pristine rib bones. I meekly confess to Father, "I have no idea what Danielle is talking about."

Danielle should have come to me with this information. Instead of launching yet another misguided attempt to get Father to overlook her disability, and offer her unconditional love and approval, instead of disdain and pity. Danielle understands Father views her as damaged goods, and she has to work doubly hard to prove herself, more often than not at my expense. Father never took the time to learn sign language, and he has never been affectionate or involved with Danielle since discovering her handicap when she was an infant.

"Like I said, this is all freshly baked," and I continue lying to my family as well as myself, "I never had a taste of this news until just now."

Payback is a bitch, and I'll serve up the thirteen-year-old snitch just like Jonathan Swift suggested. I continue explaining to Father, who glares at me with the familiar look of "disown" in his eyes, "Danielle was in the kitchen with me and mom today at three o'clock watching your speech. The little brat never mentioned anything about Jen to me."

Father shifts his glare from me to Danielle. As much of a lying, crazy, junkie shit that I am, he will still believe me over the cripple Danielle. So, I game this up for all it is worth.

"Does Danielle's action seem peculiar to anyone else sitting at the table besides me?" I look everyone in the eye, and stop at Danielle. I slowly enunciate so she can read my lips while I throw her beneath the big yellow Special Ed bus, "Danielle supposedly sees my girlfriend hanging out with some Negro cat, and she sits on this news all evening?"

Danielle's little face trembles and contorts with anger as she reads my lips. She starts making her grunting noises while her fingers and hands pop and lock with purpose. Nevertheless, all eyes are fixed on me and my character assassination of poor retarded Danielle.

I ask everyone at the table, "Why did Danielle not bother to pull me aside and mention Jen to me?"

Mother and Father wait for Danielle to answer.

"However, Danielle chooses to put me on blast at the dinner table in front of the whole damn fam?" I know there is something going on with Jen, but Danielle's story is bullshit, or is it? Regardless, I step on the gas and continue to drive over Danielle, "To me, this whole story reeks of an agenda, of someone who obviously doesn't have my best interest at heart."

"What you did was grimy," Lynsay bites on my story, and signs to Danielle, "Why didn't you tell Phineas about seeing Jen at the mall?"

Danielle sits with her impaired Forrest Gump expression and shrugs her shoulders.

Mother taps Danielle on her shoulder to get her attention, and signs, "You are obviously saying this to hurt Phineas. If it is true, why would you keep this from your brother?"

"I have no idea what Danielle is signing," Father says, not even bothering to look in my direction. "However, I know Phineas is lying if his lips are moving. Someone better hurry and appease me with something I can believe."

"Tell the whole story right now," Mother signs to Danielle and talks at the same time, "or consider yourself grounded with no allowance for a month."

Danielle glares at Mother with a defiant scowl, and signs, "If I'm grounded, why should I tell anyone anything?"

I bounce out of my chair, and step toward Danielle, ready to regulate on the pint sized prima donna. However, Mother steps between us, and ushers me back to my chair.

"Because I will kick your ass you little bi..." I sign to Danielle, behind Mother's back.

Mother turns around and catches the last part of my threat, and shrieks, "Phineas, don't speak to your..."

"Well she is a bitch." Lynsay cuts Mother off, and shouts at Danielle, "Sandbagging your brother at the dinner table, how grimy is that?"

Danielle wells up with tears; although, at this point it's all about the story, and I don't give a fuck.

She dabs at her eyes with a dinner napkin, blows her nose, and commences to castrate me by sign, while Mother does the play by play for Father, "They were holding hands, and Jen was kissing all over the Negro guy."

"Bullshit." I snap at Danielle.

"Shut up." Father reaches across and cuffs me upside the head with his Bible.

"Ouch!"

"They were like on a reality show," Danielle signs feverishly, and Mother struggles to keep up, "It didn't seem like Jen cared who saw her. You should have seen Tara's mother, I thought she was gonna pee her pants."

Father listens intently, and says nothing. I slump back in my chair and stare blankly up at the Last Judgment reproduction by Michelangelo, from the Sistine Chapel, painted on our dining room ceiling as opposed to the Hand of God giving life to Adam. I listen to Mother mouth what Danielle is signing, and my mind drifts to drugs. Getting high would create more problems than solutions. Furthermore why compromise a pleasant buzz. I need to get my piece from under my mattress, and go over to Jen's and regulate on this bullshit.

I return my attention to my family, and everyone is now staring at me. I realize I am geeking like a fiend, and scratching at my porcelain plate with a plastic fork. Now I understand why Father and Mother didn't allow me metal forks and knives at dinner after I got out of rehab the third time.

Father removes the plastic fork from my hand, snaps it in half with one hand, and tosses it to the table.

Mother slides her chair over to me, "Baby," She proceeds to massage my neck and shoulders, and naively attempts to tell me soft enough so Father can't hear, "I don't know if it's a good idea for you to be involved with a young lady who associates with..."

"Associating?" Fathers interrupts, grinding his teeth while caressing the cover of his Bible, "That is an interesting choice of words."

"I have a superior word," Lynsay snaps, "how about allegedly?"

She waited to clap back at Father, and picked her moment with brilliance.

"Remember that word, just like your mentor Adolf? None of us has any corporeal proof if anything happened between Jen and this anonymous man. Before we pin the scarlet letter on Hester Jen, maybe we give Phineas, as well as Jen, the benefit of the doubt. At the least, we need to recognize some due diligence is in order here."

Mother sighs deeply and nods her head in agreement with Lynsay. She stands, kisses me on the top of the head, and begins clearing the dinner dishes.

Mother kissed me on the head when visiting hours were over at the rehab facility. Father said some abbreviated serenity prayer over me, like a blessing from the Pope, and they quickly left. He stopped the serenity prayers after my third stint in rehab. They stopped coming to visit after my fifth stay. I don't remember how many times I have been in rehab.

Lynsay and Danielle promptly excuse themselves from the table to help Mother with the dishes, and flee the ire of Father. Lynsay trails Danielle out of the dining room and slaps her upside the head as they pass from my sight into the sanctuary of the kitchen.

I sit back down at the dining room table alone with Father and count the corn bread crumbs surrounding my plate. He gazes through me, sayings nothing for what seems like an eternity. Father picks his dinner fork off the table and leans over toward me as if to tell me a secret. I notice a hint of blood on his lower lip, where he apparently bit through the skin. He wields his fork so close to my face, I can smell the mixture of collard greens and hot sauce on the utensil.

"Phineas." Father taps me on the chin with the teeth of the fork.

"Yes sir." I respond; however, I refuse to look up at Father.

He places the fork on my chin, raises my head up, and issues his commandment, "I forbid you to associate with any woman who..."

At that moment, Mother walks into the dining room, breaking Father's concentration for a moment; however, he effortlessly refocuses, and continues, "Any woman who deems it appropriate to fondle, and tongue some nigg..."

Mother has our dinner napkins in her hand as she passes behind Father, and shoves the cotton napkins in his mouth, covers Father's mouth with her hand, and tells him, "I wish you wouldn't associate with that word, it is crude and beneath a man of your position."

He tears Mother's hand away from his mouth, and spits the napkins out of his mouth, "What the hell are you doing!" Father stands and throws the saliva soaked napkins across the room. He pounds the table with his leather bound Bible; rattling and spilling anything remaining on the tabletop.

Mother and Lynsay hurry back into the Dining Room, as Father bellows, "I have worked hard to build an exemplary Christian life for this family."

Mother instinctively stands in front of me, shielding me from Father's rant.

He points the Bible at me, and shouts, "You will not bring shame and disgrace to this family by associating with some slut with a case of jungle fever, do you understand me Phineas?"

"Yes sir." I obediently nod my head.

"Do you understand Lynsay?" Father points to Lynsay, now standing behind Mother and me.

"Yes Father." Lynsay nods.

Father slowly enunciates to Danielle cowering behind the kitchen door. She quickly nods, as well as signs yes before retreating into the kitchen.

I take a deep sigh of relief this is over; however, no such luck this black Sunday.

Father steps between Mother and Lynsay grabs me by the shirt collar, and slams me back in my chair, "Sit down boy, I'm not finished with you."

Father resumes stalking the room, running his hands through his thick mane of premature gray hair. He clutches the Bible to his chest, before preaching, "If God had wanted races to mix, he would have created them equal, and the same. However, in his infinite wisdom, our good Lord did not create us equal, or the same. There is a reason one man is born White, and with consummate advantage, while another is born Negro, and with considerable disadvantage. Whites are blessed, we are the chosen ones, on your knees family, and bow you heads, let us give thanks."

I drop to my knees along with Mother and the girls while Father places his hand firmly on my bowed head, and prays, "Heavenly Father, we thank you for your bountiful blessings. Please help my children, my entire family, and my race to remember always, we are the chosen people, the children of your holiness. Bless us with the fortitude to achieve our holy, righteous, manifest destiny. You have illuminated the path we must follow, and have called me to lead White people of this great land to our blessed glory. Continue to bless us with wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. That we may recognize the pathologies characteristic to the Negro devil, and refrain from these temptations. The inherent pathologies of the Negro race and all who succumb to their temptations will be eternal damnation in Hell. In your name, we pray heavenly Father, Amen."

Everyone repeats, "Amen," however, we all remain on bended knee, with our heads bowed.

Father removes his hand from my head, and I hear his John Lobbs tread smoothly across the hardwood floor, and out of the room. Minutes later I cautiously open my eyes, and glance up to see Lynsay putting on her hoodie and throwing her ever-present black Passchal messenger brief over her shoulder. I doubt if she will return for anymore Sunday dinners; however, I bow my head and say a quick prayer asking for her return. Lynsay taps Danielle on the head; she opens her eyes, sees me, and scoots out of the room.

Mother remains on her knees praying furiously while I whisper to Lynsay, "What do you think she is praying for?"

"She's praying for you Junior," Lynsay looks down at our Mother, and back at me, "without a doubt, she's praying for you."

Lynsay gives me a hug and kisses me on the head as Mother did at rehab, and walks out of the room. I hear the front door open, and softly close, and like Keyser Soze, Lynsay she is gone again. I look down at Mother deep in prayer, notice a tear streaming down her cheek, and know the prayer is for me.

Prayer makes me uncomfortable, especially, when people feel compelled to mention me in their appeals to their higher power. This infers that something is exceptionally wrong with me; something so extreme it exceeds the scope of a mere mortal, and only God can help. Aside from the fact, I plan to get fucked up, take my gun, and kill Jen, her spook, and anyone who gets in my way; I think I am holding up rather well. I know my purpose, and I have God on my side, Father said so. Can you amen to that?

Hitler Loves Aunt Jemima is a chapter excerpt from Steven Jackson's upcoming novel _Leaving Omelas,_ due out in August 2013.

### Chapter Three

### A River Mount

### by

### Jake Connors

"Louisiana is the birth place of great manifests," Papa says that to me a lot, but it's usually when he is drunk or high. He goes on muttering, "Son, go and make as much money as you can. Your manifest is to not become a broken down junkie like me."

Papa is constantly conniving on some money making scheming: chopping wood and selling it, gator hunting, trapping crawdads, selling drugs, and brewing moonshine in our old trailer. It isn't much of a trailer, the paint is moss green and peeling like bark off a tree, the bottom is rusting out, and the toilet only works half the time. There are bullet holes on the river side of trailer from when Pa stumbled home drunk one night and thought there was a gator inside the trailer, but it was only a Possum.

We live deep in the Atchafalaya River Swamp; some call it the largest swamp in the United States. All I know is our trailer sits where the Atchafalaya River and the Gulf of Mexico meet.

My Mama is dead, but I don't remember how she died. I was still in diapers, but I hear the neighbors talking about Pa gonna die the same way mama did. She probably drank herself to death, or put a needle in her arm. I try to remember Mama, but Papa don't want to remember her anymore. Every night I get up to pee I see him passed out on the couch, a filthy red bandana tied around his arm and a burned spoon with the needle beside it. Most nights Papa will shoot up and stare at the ceiling, searching for the stars through the rusted out holes in the roof. I wonder if he is looking for mama, or waiting to die.

In the morning I walk into the kitchen to scrounge around for something to eat for breakfast. I don't drink the water because it taste like gasoline smells. I open the cupboard to get a bowl to eat some cereal, but the cabinets are empty like Old Mother Hubbard's. Glasses and bowls are scattered throughout the trailer, most are caked with a rotten food and mouse turds.

The next time it rains I might collect the rainwater, heat it over a campfire and wash the dishes. I walk around the trailer collecting dishes and silverware in anticipation of the next rain. I tip toe past Papa and glance into his dead eyes staring back at me, "Papa, are you awake?" I ask, trying to mask my concern that he might be dead, "Papa, Papa wake up, please wake up." I lay my head to his chest and hear a faint heartbeat.

I walk back to my bedroom, but it's not a real room. There is no door, no windows, no pictures on the wall, and no toys. There is just a dirty mattress that covers a hole in the floor, and a threadbare itchy wool blanket. I put on a long sleeve thermal undershirt, my Levi's, and shoes. Papa will sleep through the day, probably do more drugs, and will do the same thing again tomorrow.

The next morning I wake up to the trailer filled with smoke and a smell like burning hair. I hop off my mattress in fear that Papa passed out and left the candle burning again. This wouldn't be the first time Papa caught the place on fire and almost killed us both.

"Papa fire!" I run screaming out into the main part of the mobile home, but find Papa in the kitchen. He is hunched over the stove frying something in a skillet, maybe squirrel. He sees me run into the kitchen and tries to stand erect, but those days are gone. He looks older than his thirty eight years by at least twenty. His eyes are black and empty, his face concave from his teeth rotted out, but hidden beneath a bushy red beard that birds would fight to nest in.

"Hey boy, come over here," Papa said. He took a deep guzzle of something in a mason jar, and then turned to look in my direction, but not at me, "I got a surprise for you."

Two mismatched chairs sit at the rickety kitchen table, and two mismatched place mats rest on the table, surrounded by Dixie cups, paper plates, and plastic forks. He flipped the mystery meat onto slices of stale white bread, slathered mustard and mayonnaise on it and slapped them together, "This is some gourmet shit boy."

"Thank you Papa," I had the biggest smile on my face and thought to himself that I hadn't had a breakfast like this probably since when mom was alive. He poured me a cup of Kool-Aid and we dug into this delicious breakfast like we was rich.

"Henry, you gonna come with me to run a few errands," Papa said. He ate his sandwich in three bites, and gulped from his mason jar, "We'll be home before dark." I knew that wasn't true because every time Papa goes on these errands he wouldn't be back for a couple of days, to maybe a week.

Right after breakfast I rushed to my room and got dressed in my going to church jeans and my Grambling University Football t-shirt. I am so excited I run out the door and forget to put on my shoes.

Outside the sky is cloudy, but it is a hot and muggy day. I should put some pots and buckets out because it looks like rain. Papa holds his drink in one hand and throws a bulky black garbage bag and a dirty green backpack bag into the old canoe. There are a couple of holes in canoe, but Papa will paddle, and my job is to scoop out the water with a rusty MJB coffee can he keeps in back of the boat.

"Henry, get in the damn canoe boy," Papa snaps. But I just stood there, not defiant, now anxious.

"I'm sacred Papa," I mutter. I know whatever Papa does when he is gone isn't good, and we might get hurt, or hurt somebody, or die.

"Get your skinny ass in that boat before I put my belt to it!" Papa shouts, and drinks from his jar.

I stand on the mucky river bank, as if my feet are stuck in the mud. I stare at Poppa standing next to the canoe, but don't move.

Papa sets his drink down, and starts to remove his gator skin belt. Once I hear the jangling of the buckle I rush over to the canoe and climb in. Papa didn't need to say another word. He buckles his belt, pushes the canoe into the river and hops in, causing the boat to sway out into the river.

The river is a pale brown, like grease used to fry chicken. We float down the river for about three hour; Papa drank and smoked the time away, not much for talking. "There it is," Papa says. He flicks his hand rolled cigarette into the water, and paddles up to the shore. I notice a row of ragged trailers that made ours look like a mansion. Several beat up and dirty men like us come out of the woods and help Papa pull the canoe up on the riverbank.

Papa grabs his zip up duffel bag and walks to the first trailer. Inside it smells like farm animals, even worse than our trailer. The old couple who lives there aren't friendly at all. The old man is named Drew, and he has a bald spot on his head and wears a sleeveless shirt with army shorts. His wife Gabby is big, old, and smells like a wet dog. Her belly droops to her knees, and I wonder how she can wash her privates because I know she can't reach them.

"Sit down and shut up," Papa orders me.

I sit on the floor quietly, suck on my thumb, and stay on the lookout for rats and cockroaches.

Father opens up his duffel bag and pulls out the big Mason jar filled with what look to be foil marbles. Drew pulls a wad of wrinkled paper money out of his sock and hands it to Papa, who reaches in the jar and gives Drew some of the marbles.

The fat lady takes one of the marbles and peels off the foil wrapper, takes out the stuff, puts it on a spoon, and heats it over a candle. Papa got the last high, and the three sat there knocked for several hours. Papa left the couple nodded out and took me around to the trailers selling heroin, and getting high. Four days passed, and once he was done with the dealing we got back in the boat and rowing back up the river. He earned $854 dollars.

When we got home I went in my room to color in my books that weren't even coloring books just magazines adults read. Later that day a police officer from town drove up the dirt driveway. The woman cop gets out of the car and brushes road dust off her green and brown uniform. She has brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, blue eyes, but her face looks plain as paper. She walks up towards the trailer and calls out, "Hello is anyone home?" I came out, and then she says, "Good morning Henry did you just wake up?"

I shook my head no.

"Is your Pa home?" The officer asks.

I nod my head up and down.

"Good, can I see him?"

I shake my head

"No, well that's okay. Why don't you come over here you want to see something cool?"

I walk over to her and she shows me her shiny gold badge. My eyes open wide and stare at it.

Papa slams the screen door open and stalks down the stairs, "Henry get your butt inside."

I rush pass Papa and into the mobile home, but listen from a broken window in the front of the trailer.

"Calm down Darrel I was just showing Henry my badge"

"You were always good at showing off weren't you?" Papa says.

"I never showed off," The officer says, as if familiar with Papa, "Are you drunk again?"

"Oh yeah sure," Papa says, "that's why you had to leave everyone behind to be a cop"

"I'm damn proud of it," The officer says, "I didn't want to be a heroin addict like you?"

"Get the hell out of here." Papa shouts.

"I wanted to have a future," She shouts back at Papa, "I was done with that dead-end life you were offering."

"You never gave a damn about us" Father says, "only yourself."

"I gave everything to help," She says, "and you kept messing with that heroin."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Papa says.

"Really?"

"Get the hell off my property," Papa tells her again, as mean as I ever heard him.

"I'll leave right after you let me see your arms," The sheriff says, showing no fear.

"I don't have to show you a damn thing," Papa says, "now get the hell off my property before I call the cops."

"Look I just came here to see how Henry was doing that's all," The sheriff said.

"We're fine, you don't have to worry," Papa says, "I can take care of my own son."

Papa turns his back to the officer, and walks back inside. The officer walks back to her car, waits several minutes before started the car up and driving away.

Papa walks over to me, and says quietly but with a firm voice, "So did you have nice talk with her?"

I didn't answer. But I know papa isn't about to let me go quietly.

"I said did you have a nice talk with her?" He walks closer to me, and I see his hand move toward the belt buckle.

"Hello I can't hear you!" Papa grabs me by the arm and shakes me, "Did you have a nice talk with that ungrateful bitch?"

I started sobbing, "I'm sorry Papa."

"Well sorry doesn't cut it." Papa stops shaking me, and tosses me to the floor, "What if it was someone that wanted to take you away from me? The world out there is a scary place, that's why I keep you close, so nothing can happen to you. I am trying to protect you from the evil in this world. Now promise you will not talk to any strangers including cops do you understand me?"

I didn't say anything.

He grabs my arm again, snatches me off the floor, shakes me like a doll, and shouts, "I said do you understand me?"

"Yes Papa, I understand." I shout back while trying to squirm from his grip.

Papa tosses me be back on the floor, "Good now, cleanup this place. I have an errand to run, and will be back late." Papa slams the door behind him, starts up the truck and is gone. I know late means two or three days.

The next day I walk into Papa's room. The room is a mess, and smells like cigarettes and piss. There is so much junk in the way I have to start climbing over a mountain of things just to get inside the door. Papa usually passes out on the couch, and I can't remember the last time he changed his clothes, so he doesn't come in here much.

After about an hour of digging I reach the bed. The sheets were full of dried piss and puke; and it almost makes me throw up. However, up by his soiled pillow I find a shoebox filled with pictures of Papa and Mama when they were young. There are so many pictures of me as a baby with Papa, and some with mother. There are pictures of mother looking towards the camera as she was sitting at the kitchen teaching me how to read. I know Papa wasn't coming home soon, so I take my time and sort through the pictures, and see several of Officer Samantha, but I don't know why. Then I see a small wallet picture of her graduating the police force and know right then who this is.

I hear a car crushing gravel driving up the dirt road to the mobile home, and I scramble off the bed because Papa would kill me if he found out I was in his room. I peek out the living room window and see Officer Samantha's squad car pull up next to the trailer. I rush out the front door, down the stairs, and leap into Officer Samantha's arms just as she steps out of her car. I hug her tight.

"This is nice," Officer Samantha, says, "What's the occasion Henry?"

"I know who you are" I whisper in her ear, "You're my sister."

"I'm sorry that I never told you." Officer Samantha says without hesitation.

"Why didn't Papa tell me who you are?" I ask Samantha, "He doesn't want us to be together?"

"Papa fears that you will leave him like I did," Samantha explains, "and Mama in a way."

"Is that why he does that stuff?" I ask.

"What does he do Henry?" Samantha asks, more like an officer than my sister.

I don't answer her question, knowing I said too much, and Papa might get in trouble.

"Henry what does he do?"

I just stand still looking down at the ground, anywhere but Samantha's blue eyes.

"It's okay Henry, I won't tell anyone," Samantha said, but she probably has to tell on Papa because she is a police officer.

"He pokes himself with a needle a lot," I finally tell her, "after that he goes to sleep."

"Does he do it around you?" Samantha asks.

I nod my head yes.

"Does he do it a lot?" Samantha asks, but clarifies the question, "Does he do it every day?"

I nod my head yes again.

"I'm sorry you have to live like this Henry." The look on Samantha's face alternates between sorrow and anger. She kneels before me, and asks, "Do you want to come away from this life you live?"

I shrug my shoulders, and say nothing.

"What don't you want to leave this place?"

"He will get better," I cry out, "I don't want Papa to die."

"Sweetie, no he won't." Samantha says, "I have to focus on saving you."

"Yes he will," I cry. I'm not even sure what Papa is getting better from.

"Henry he's done this for a long time," Samantha calmly explains, "and it's not safe for you to live here."

I turned my head and look at the ramshackle mobile home, "Tomorrow." I tell Samantha.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Tomorrow I'll leave."

Samantha nods her head in agreement, "Okay, tomorrow I'll come get you." She smiles and gives me a tight hug. I hurry into the house and count the hours until tomorrow.

It is 9:30 at night, and I nod off to sleep, just when Papa returns from his errands. He grabs me out of bed, "Get up, we have to leave."

"Where are we going?" I struggle my way out of Papa's grip, "I don't wanna go."

"You forget who the parent is," Papa picks me up and carries me outside to the truck, "and who is the child." He tosses me in the front seat, and flings his old backpack between us. I see money peeking out of the broken zipper.

"I don't wanna go Papa," I whine.

"I didn't ask you if you wanted to go," Papa twists the key in the ignition, "Come on. Come on...Come on, goddamn it, start you piece of shit." The old truck finally sputters to life. Papa switches the gears on the stick and speeds out of the driveway.

Papa drives for what seems to be a couple of hours, until we reach the opposite end of the swamp. Papa turns up a gravel road and drives until I see the headlights of two trucks ahead of us. "Papa, I want to go home," I whine, when he rolls to a stop, "I'm scared."

He grabs the backpack full of money and looks over at me, "Whatever happens you don't come out of this truck, you hear?"

"I wanna go home," I plead several more times.

Papa shuts the door and walks over to the trucks and two men came out of each of the two trucks. One is a big man wearing a tan business suit, and he has slick black hair. He is with three Cubans wearing jeans, sleeveless shirts, and carrying AK-47's. They remain in the background, and the man in the suit steps out front.

"Nice night isn't it?" The big man in the suit says.

"Sure," Papa says, "I have the..."

"I didn't think you would come." Big man interrupts.

"Why wouldn't I?" Papa asks, looking at the big man, and his three associates standing directly behind him.

"Most people in as deep a debt hole as you make a run for it." The big man says. He motions to one of the men to go and frisk Papa.

The man walks over to Papa, and pats him down, and says, "They leave town and change their name, but we always find them."

"You know why?" The head man asks Papa.

"No idea." Papa shrugs.

"Everyone makes mistakes Punta."

"Is that your kid in the truck?" One of the associate asks, and takes several steps toward the truck.

I duck down to the floor of the cab, and hold my breath.

"Look, we're here on business terms," Papa quickly answers, "don't worry who is in the truck, you just deal with me."

"I'm not worried," The big Cuban says, "as long as you have my money."

Papa walks over and drops the backpack of money on the big Cuban's white cowboy boots with sparkling diamond skulls stitched in them.

The big man smiles, and kicks the bag over to one of his associates, "Count it."

Big man's associate retrieves the bag, carries it over in front of one of the trucks to use the headlights to see while he counts the money.

The right hand man counts the money, returns and whispers something in big man's ear.

"Hey Essa," big man says, tossing the back pack over to Papa, and landing at his feet, "this is light four thousand and change."

"Bullshit, it should all be there." Papa takes two steps back toward the truck, and considers running for it, "I swear it's all there."

"Fool, are you trying to screw me over?"

"No, I swear to god I would never!" Papa pleads, while digging into the backpack to count the money himself.

"You lowlife piece of shit," The big Cuban shouts at Papa, "you trying to run game on me."

"No, please give me another week to get all the money for you," Papa pleads, and I know he is in trouble, we are in trouble.

"Here is what I will give you," The man in the suit kicks Papa in the crotch. Papa falls to the ground, and he kicks Papa in the face. The man grabs Papa by his shirt and punches him in the face repeatedly. The other man kicks Papa in the ribs with the point of his boot the big Cuban stomps Papa and I can hear Papa's nose crack.

"Go home with your boy," Big man says, "junkies selling drugs never works out well."

The Cubans get in their trucks and drive away, and I finally have the courage to get out of the truck, "Papa," I scream, and ran over to him. However, all he could do is groan, and ooze blood. Papa struggles to stand up and walk back to the truck with me trying to help. He manages to get us home safely, but passes out in the cab of the truck.

The next morning I go out to the truck and Papa isn't there. I return to the house and notice the bathroom light is on. I walk in and see Papa trying to clean the dry blood off his beard and fix his nose. Papa's face is purple and battered like fresh road kill. He catches a glimpse of me behind him in the mirror and closes the door in my face.

Papa opens the bathroom door and limps out. He walks into his room and returns with his drugs in hand. I remember Samantha is coming today.

Papa sits on the couch and places the drugs on the coffee table in front of him. "Papa don't do it," I beg, "we will get through this Papa, please don't."

Papa doesn't listen.

I lay my head on his lap for what I thought would be the last time, and fall asleep.

I wake up to candles burning all over the trailer, and ask, "What's wrong?"

"They turned off our electric bill," Papa shouts, "I can't even pay a fucking bill."

"Papa its okay we will get through this."

"You got into my stuff while I was gone;" Papa grits his rotten teeth in anger, the tension hurting like knives to the face, "didn't you?"

"No I didn't pa," I lied.

Don't you lie to me you know you did, now fess up and take your beating."

I started to cry aloud, "Okay, I did. I did see the pictures and read the letters. I now that Samantha is my sister."

Papa stands up and limps towards me with hands clinched into fists, "You are getting into grown folks business that don't involve you boy."

"I want to be with Samantha," I shout at Papa, now standing over me.

"You ungrateful little shit," Papa shouts, and slaps me across the face, "after all I have done for you. You are my son, and aren't going anywhere."

"Yes I am," I shout at Papa, and get up to run; however, Papa slaps me hard across the face, and I fall back to the floor.

"You little shit, you are just as mouthy as your sister," Papa says, and stomps into the kitchen, "I got something to take care of that bay attitude."

Papa snatches the cast iron from the stove and charges at me. I am still stunned from the slaps to my face, but able to run down the hall. Papa is close behind swinging away at the walls putting holes in them. He corners me in my makeshift bedroom, holds the frying pan overhead, and yells, "You want to leave me?"

"Samantha is coming to get me today," I tell Papa, before the big frying pan comes down on my head.

There is a light mist in the air and the river meandered past, Officer Samantha drives up and sees the other cop cars in front of the mobile home along with an ambulance. Yellow crime scene tape surrounds the mobile home. She gets out of the squad car and sprints to the sheriff, and asks, "Grady, what happened?"

"I'm sorry Sam."

"Henry!" Sam shouts, and runs toward the mobile home, but Sheriff Grady stops her.

"Sam calm down." Grady says, "We had a call from the neighbors saying they heard some disturbance in the...'

"Tell me what the fuck happened?"

"He killed the boy."

Two men from the coroner's office roll a gurney past Samantha with a small body bag on top. She looks over and sees her Papa sitting in the dirt with his hands cuffed, and two cops standing next to him. She rushes over unsure whether to shoot him or beat him like he did Henry. However, the two cops and another sheriff restrain Samantha and pulls her away shouting, "You bastard I hate you, I hate you."

The next day, Samantha walks over to the interrogation room and sees her father on the other side of the glass sitting in a chair in front of the metal table. The interrogator emerges from the room, and Samantha immediately asks, "What did he say?"

"The boy told the old man that he was leaving, and the old man went batshit crazy."

"Can I talk to him?" Samantha asks.

"Ten minutes," The man nods, "leave your firearm with me."

Samantha opens the door, walks around her father, grabs the chair, and sits in front of him at the table. She asks "How do you feel?"

Papa doesn't answer, and averts his eyes to avoid her cold stare.

"How could you have done that to your own son, I mean why?"

"You think I'm proud of what I did?" Papa says, "All my life I have been making excuses and blaming others for my mistake? And now I have realized it hasn't brought me anywhere. After your momma died my world crumbled I started to blame myself, you, doctors and even god. I don't even think god is real but I talked to him that day when she died, I really did. I tried so hard to not let Henry leave by not letting him know you, to not even get the knowledge of living anywhere but with me."

"That is your excuse to kill my brother?"

"When he told me that he was leaving I knew I would be alone, and I couldn't stand the thought."

"I stopped by the other day and he told me that he knew that I was his sister." Samantha says, "I asked him if he wanted to go away, and he said tomorrow. He wanted to spend one last night with you."

Samantha walks away leaving him with his eyes wide open and mouth shut.

The next day she sits in her squad car by the highway staring out the front windshield. She sometimes likes to sit out here and think about if she wants to get married or have a few kids but what can make her leave it all behind. Where would she live, will she be able to support myself, how will she get a job is it really worth leaving it all behind? She paused as she thought about it, "yeah I guess it is worth it," She then turns the ignition and drives onto the highway that comes out of Louisiana not knowing what her future will look like only to start fresh and maybe find some peace. Because every life is a river and in that river are rocks and mounts we can't go back but only keep going forward and soon we will get to the peaceful streams and will realize it sure was worth it.

### Author Bio

I am a full time COCC student and a member of the writing club Writing is my passion, and I first started by writing songs when I was a musician in a rock band. Just like a song, I love writing stories with a meaning that will capture my audience emotionally and envision the world that they are reading comes to life.

### Chapter Four

### My Toxic Child

### by

### Samuel J. Bass

Sitting up with veracity his heart was a blitzkrieg, propelling this poor young boy to thoughts of death and heart failure, _did glass enter my lungs?_ Posing this question to nobody but the sticky blackness shadowing the living room floor that he claimed as a bedroom, this poor boy received no answers. Thoughts poured into his head, questions without answers, answers only the medical profession could be of any help with. He felt blood pumping faster than normal, _from the breathing_? _No, was it the thinking maybe_? _No, no, it was from the fever_ , this overwhelming fever and a broken heart created a toxic cocktail. His brain thinking a bit too loudly Sam asked himself, _Am I dying?_

In the only bedroom of his family's dinky apartment in Dallas Texas he could overhear his mother indiscriminately making _Ooohs_ and _Ahhhs_ and _Fuck me's._ Almost six years old, to Sam these words meant little to nothing at first due to his short list of vernacular, yet, there they were lingering above his halo, slapping him in the face with indignities. He didn't know this adult world and his mother was all alone in her room and the fever made everything in the living room move. This toxic world was a frightening one to feverish Sam.

Presently his preferred world was only filled with true loves, the one and only he hoped to meet some day. The one to settle down with, so romance and equality could flourish, and he thought; _I'll be understood by that person I'm in love with one day and be happy ever after, and this scary world will go away._

Feverish as ever he slipped back into his subconscious. At times even without fevers his subconscious and conscious mind melted together so he was never truly sure what was exactly real, and what he had just created in the cloud nine where his head constantly resided on.

He thought he saw tooth-fairies once, sometimes thoughts of a struggle with some unknown dark force took over, sometimes the floor was lava and only his children books were safe to stand on while their second hand two-seater couch was a boat floating to safety away from a melting room. Sometimes the wall's roller designed milky white patterns became faces and animals and gained depth as the day's shadows grew ancient.

A few days later his fever broke and he was back to being his exuberant active self. The sickness was terminated and the youth would have no memory of past ails, a fortunate short term memory loss. That same day he requisitioned a parachute to float down from a one story high wall. The parachute was a plastic grocery bag and the one story wall was only half a story tall. Sam was wearing his kid goggles so there were exaggerations in his imaginations.

Down he went leaping without fear and almost sprained his ankle on landing, the Tom Thumb's grocery parachute failed. Adding an additional one he tried again. On the jump bags filled with air making two blue humps on his skinny shirtless back. Seemingly in Sam's mind he floated slowly down with more ease than his first attempt exclaiming, _I did it! But it's still not very good yet._

Coming back upstairs to their one bedroom, the only living space his mother could afford on a disjointed money flow, he sniffed the air, mom was cooking a cake for his birthday today. A carrot cake with white cream cheese delicious frosting. He was six.

_Happy birthday Sam, my baby boy, my big boy!_ His mom was full of exclamations which he always felt were indulgently eccentric. Sam hated it when his mom called him a " _baby_ ," but as often as he expressed a distaste for this term she hung it over him, never listening to his objections it seemed, or maybe mom didn't care how he felt, or maybe both.

Gorging his appetite to death on carrot cake with his younger brother Daniel, there was no good reason not to eat piece after piece until there was almost nothing left. Sam and Dan rarely were able to attain sweet treats like this.

After cake, Daniel brought out the dolls, a gift mom was usually known for giving them. This had never seemed odd to Daniel, but Sam loathed them. _Dolls are stupid, I hate them! Please, please get me a transformer, the Optimus Prime one, the red one, pallease mom!_ This outcry targeted at his mom was so strong that she forced herself against her better judgment to buy one before his birthday. Of course her better judgment was lacking sense and logic, so any better judgment she had, had been thrown out the window before Sam was born. She was a mother who didn't know how to be a mother to Sam, a child who was never able to be a child.

_Thank you mom, love you._ Kissing mom, Sam was wholly happy about saying this. Mom had gotten him a favorite toy, an Optimus Prime Transformer. He could have gone for a simple Spiderman or Ghostbusters toy, but Sam prided himself in not having to read the directions, reserving to figure it out on the fly instead. Transformers were cool because they were complex and manipulable; Spiderman was none of these things. This was a precedent he set himself up for, for the rest of his life. Figuring it all out for himself. Sam had no tangible heroes; only false marketable prophets were part of his life right now.

Playing with Daniel there was the death of a Barbie doll by the hands of Optimus Prime. Sam played the role well with sound effects and Daniel made a valiant effort to struggle into a Barbie death by laser beam. _Ring... Ring..._ There went mom running for the phone again. No more birthday as a family, now he was alone with Daniel playing as if she had never been there to begin with.

Sam's tough black cat Mitten had just then come back from adventures. They had found Mitten and his brother as kittens in a box at the local park. Taking them in Sam took great care of his friend Mitten; Daniel on the other hand abused his cat. Eventually this cat would run away from Daniel. Sam could hear Mitten at the door now, _mew mew meow!_ Letting him in, Mitten barraged Sam's legs with affection and left black hairs all over his plain shoes and white socks. Mitten was Sam's best friend, his only dearest friend; he wished Mitten would live as long as him.

There it was again, the sounds of his mom on the phone, _Oooh baby mmmmm yes I love that so much, fuck me, fuck me!_ It was the only way she paid the bills. Sam consciously knew this without too much passing thought, but he had started to loathe it all the same. Eventually he would hate the profession and have a hard time loving her for too long.

The apartment complex they lived in was huge and built on a slope. The slope was great because Sam had a bigwheel, a three wheeled plastic hotrod with a handbrake and when Sam pulled it on the downhill slopes of the parking lot, spinouts and donuts would take place at high speeds. This would eat up the rear hard plastic wheels until there were lines of wear eating holes through the middles. Sam didn't care, all that mattered were the thrills of testing what he would later come to know as physics.

Using all the outlets available to gain outside access, Sam and Dan did their best to not be in the house, partly because of mom's work and partly because they naturally were wild ones who needed the outdoors like Tarzan's kids would have. But in Dallas there were times of the year that wouldn't allow this. It wasn't cold or anything at this time, even though when winter did come the cold struck people like a frigid wet towel on their naked ass.

No, usually it was due to the heavy globs of rain which made any excursion a wet one in half a second. The rain was like walking through walls of tears pouring from, what Sam presumed to be God's eyes as he cried upon him. Sometimes Sam reveled in the tears because he would cry with them; these usually came after a spanking from his mom. Love only came in aces from mom. From Mitten on the other hand, love came in spades.

A horrible moment for Sam was when Mitten had broken his foot. Most likely he was trying to be like Sam and jump from a two story high wall that was seemingly one story high to a cat. Mitten came home one day limping about like he had a thorn in his paw. Feeling extremely sad for his poor kitty they visited the vet in their old Chevy, a white jalopy of a car. Mitten hated being in any car. Mewing the whole way it was all Sam could do to keep him still in his box and comfort him so Mitten wouldn't hurt his foot further. This wouldn't be the last time the vet would see them. Mitten got damaged almost as often as Sam from their dangerous adventures, something which couldn't seem to be avoided. It was part of their DNA to test the world, and test the world they did.

Mitten healed up nicely and was out having adventures soon enough. Sam had them too. Bloodied up adventures, a scraped knee here, and a bloodied elbow there. One adventure turned quite gruesome. Sam and the other apartment kids were playing dirtball wars.

The Texan earth was packed and when thrown in chunks it would blow up upon impact into a dusty smoke bomb. Sam was in a makeshift plywood fort with two other boys and they were fighting some other apartment kids who were without cover on the streets. Laughing until it hurt, Sam would hit a boy to give him a dirt nap, a volley would return. One of the volleys was not just dirt. Sam popped his head up at the perfectly timed wrong moment, for he was about to be hit with something hard. A rock had ninjaed itself into the incoming dirt ball en-route to his brain basket. _Crrackk!_ It hit him square on the top of his head, Sam wasn't sure if he could hear it or just felt the stone's wrath. Nevertheless, he was left in tears and bewilderment.

Blood was now trickling down his forehead, the other boys were stunned, all fighting stopped, and Sam wailed _Mommm!!!_ Running home in shock, he stepped inside to find his Mom's door shut and those same annoying strange sounds escaping the all too thin walls. _Mommm I'm hurt, my head is bleeding!_ Stopping short the mysterious sexcapade his Mom was more than agitated, but upon seeing Sam's head she lost her blind personal punishment vendetta, a combination of money and authority, and instead told her client she would have to talk later due to an emergency. Taking Sam into the shower she cleaned his head off with soap and water. The water at his feet went from dirty brown to bloody red and then to a misty reddish clear color. His lifeblood was going down the drain.

She covered his head with a cold wet towel and made him keep it there while she made him explain what happened. _We were playing, throwing dirt balls at each other, one had a rock in it, sniff sniff, and it hit me in the head, sniff._ Sam sniffling through the words, trying his best to talk through the lump in his throat, and at this point feeling much like the rock had gone through his head and lodged itself in his thorax. The rocky obstruction he now felt seemed to consistently make its way back into his throat in the upcoming years, until Sam just stopped crying about physical pain. Much later the rock would return to his throat replaced by tears of emotional pain. Eventually he found these tears would flow for all kinds or reasons, sometimes happening while not even knowing the where or why. Sam would just know and tears would flow. He discovered that many tears can be shed while understanding the world's injustices and beauties.

Healing up nicely within a week, a scar was leftover, just one of many to follow. Both inside and out. Sam sometimes asked the big questions at his most dire moments: Why am I here God? Why not just kill me? Why did you want me born into pain? Why couldn't I have just not been born, it would make things so much easier.

Fighting with his mom critically one day, something that would start to happen on a daily basis, he professed to her for the first time: I wish I wasn't even born, I hate you!

This statement came after a spanking, which had preceded an argument, and for lack of a stronger memory on the subject, an argument most likely made up of petty matters. Family arguments seemed senseless to Sam, because most of the time they were about nothing but illogical matters. Sam was never a bad kid, just highly curious. He even told mom that being a scientist was his future and there could be no better profession to occupy his mind. He had no idea there were many kinds of scientists, but Sam just knew he loved dinosaurs, robots, chemistry, and figuring out the complex galactic questions he thought up.

Unfortunately mom never really took him that seriously. Sam had to request books to read. Books meant for a genius six year old, because up until this time mom never had bought a book above Dr. Suess and Winnie the Pooh, a standard for his age group. He wanted chemistry books, astronomy books, dinosaur books and the like. Even if he couldn't understand the books now, there was a strong reserve in him that said he wanted to learn everything interesting. Sam was anything but average, yet he had no idea about this concept until his adult life. He thought that everyone had the possibility to think the big thoughts.

Every month during his life as a child mom would talk to him about money. She would talk to him since she had no one else to turn to who would listen like Sam could. Of course there were the clients over the phone, but all they wanted to talk about was sex and to be dominated. So she turned to her son, professing her struggles with money saying, I might not be able to pay rent this month so we might have to go back to living on the streets, its tough this month. Sam had started to think, it's tough every month, when will it not be tough?

These woeful thoughts worried the poor boy to shreds. His mom had no clue about the damaging complex she was building into him, thus exposing him to being a sad adult before he could really be a child, let alone a happy child. Maybe it was better to be a sad knowledgeable adult in a kid's body than a happy naive adult-child. Mom didn't seem to care much for the damage she'd done. It wasn't until Sam was closing in on his thirties did she apologize for being unaware and the bad choices, but even that was a struggle with reality on her end.

Reality seemed to escape his mom, it was as if logic and good planning had been thrown out the window and replaced with selfishness and chaos. She had left his father when he was almost three and Daniel had barely been around long enough to make out that he was alive. These brothers were two years and eight months apart. Sam had been born in New York, Daniel was born in California, these two worlds apart set the precedent for their adult lives, but peacefully for now Sam and Dan were friends.

When mom left his father Howard they had nowhere to go really. Mom would tell Sam that his father was abusive so she had to escape with them and felt that she didn't want her two boys growing up abusing women. That was her gospel.

Later Sam would come to realize his mom enjoyed arguments, getting in too deep and flaming fires for no reason, only to battle on for nothing but to forcefully triumph. She struck first and questioned her actions later, which was similar to an abusive boyfriend or husband that apologizes after giving his girl a black eye, yet later regresses and does it again. Much later Sam would realize that, yes his Dad most likely hit her, but she was most likely the instigator, the bully. Mom would bully Sam on a consistent basis even when he wasn't aware of it. The money, the spankings, the yelling, the babying of Daniel; Sam had to take almost the full burden of manhood at six because she was on the phone consistently making sexual noises that haunted him. Also someone had to keep the house clean to help out mom and his brother was not the one to do it because he was _a lazy son of a bitch_.

Of course he had to do it perfect too, another complex she gave him. If it wasn't perfect mom would yell at him to do it right and show him how to clean things completely. After a year or two of this he would do the job perfect just so he didn't have to talk with her.

At six and a half Sam had a girlfriend named Penny who lived a few apartments away from him. She was a light brown haired, brown eyed pretty freckled girl, one year older than him. He loved her freckles and her smile. He even thought he loved her, although love was in a void to Sam since he had no idea what to do with it or how to appreciate it at six. Sam did what every little boy should do when they fall for a little girl; he did nice things for her. Sweet things, things that would make adults say, awwww, look at them, they are so cute together.

One time in summer, like clockwork the ice cream man came around with his jingle jangle tune attracting all the apartment kids just like when the Pied Piper of Hamelin had lured children in Germany. Penny and Sam were outside and bolted towards the tune with the other kids. Once the dashers were at the source of the tune Sam had found that Penny didn't have enough to buy her own ice cream. Unselfishly Sam scrounged around in his pockets and with his last cent helped her buy her ice cream. She was so happy and compellingly kissed him on the cheek for his servitude. Blushing, he was happy too, even if the other kids made fun of him for it. They would sing the song, K I S S I N G, Sam and Penny sitting in the tree...

Sometimes life was grand for this young Romeo, but personal battles enveloped any positive grandiosity surrounding his life as if these battles were black holes eating stars. Even if this kind of life made Sam appreciate the little things, he would rarely have time to take account of them. A new battle would be around every dark corner.

During that summer some older kids in his complex who had started to form some kind of a loose gang. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had just come into famedom so every kid wanted to be a ninja. Sam barely knew about this movie since mom couldn't afford the theater, hell they barely even had a TV to watch.

These bastards bullied Sam just about every time they saw him. This made playing with friends a matter of being in the right place at the right time in order to avoid the bully's jousting. They would say hurtful things and make him run home for cover. He explained to mom one day what they had been doing and her advice was as sound as ever! You tell those boys that, sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me. He thought about this. Would this work? Trusting mom, a bad move in most cases he would later learn, Sam went out to the bully's training area to face his demons with a metaphorical plastic sword made up of words.

It was a wide open grassy space surrounded by tall pale concrete walls. The leader was pretending to be Shredder by giving commands to his followers, making them punch the air sloppily. They wore loose fitting clothing and had funny homemade armor on them, much like the Foot Clan from the movie. Seeing this from his perch a story above them, Sam took a deep breath and gulped down the words, then feeling them rumble around unsettling his stomach he yelled down, sticks and stones may break my bones but your words will never hurt me!

The leader drew his gaze up on Sam; he was a tall blond haired juvenile and looked tough. He then proceeded to let out the loudest laugh Sam had ever heard; meanwhile all his loyal subjects followed suit laughing their asses off at him too. Mom was wrong, mom was wrong again. While thinking this, his eyes widened in a panicked stance at the looming threat growing before him. His two fearful blues now almost black from pupil dilation.

They had now stopped laughing and had started to chase him, but they were too far away and Sam was close to his apartment. Now they had a vendetta against him. Thanks a lot mom, now they will be looking to hurt me, he thought about this while pacing around the living room. Sam was right, they did want to hurt him now more than ever, just to prove him wrong and complete their power trips. Something that seemed to be a bully's most sacred of goals in life.

Why did they want to hurt me? I don't understand what I did in the first place to make them hate me so much. I just want to be liked, I just want them to like me, I just want friends. But friends would not come; Sam would spend the rest of his childhood with false friends and being a target of bullies just like the karate boys. The false friends he would encounter were worse than bullies, backstabbers waiting for the right sensitive moment to strike with cunning efficiency. The first false friend Sam would come to know was his mom. The worst false friend a boy could have. It only made it worse that she was naïve to her actions.

At home Sam kept this battle to himself. His mom was of little to no help when real life popped up its ugly belittling unshaven mug with beady hollowed-out eyes. The life Sam had to deal with was an abyss of hollowed eyes staring him down, breaking him down, and making suffering something an everyday normal thing.

Chipping away at his walls of solace, this suffering eventually broke the walls down so severely, that out of necessity Sam would learn to become a Phoenix architect who was always rebuilding and restarting. Luckily he would be wiser from these tumultuous experiences and make it a few steps further than he did before by learning from past mistakes. One day I'll show yall, one day I'll be better and stronger and faster and I'll take them all on. They won't laugh at me then, afterwards they'll tell me how cool I was and how sorry they are. He dreamed on.

It was a beautiful summer early evening, bringing Sam a new sunset along with new troubles. Sammie my big boy I need you to watch your brother while I go out on a special date. His mom had set something up with one of her phone clients. Sam would be alone with his brother, and thus be alone with his internal worries. Leaving Sam to be the man of the house there was little to do and he just had to make sure Daniel didn't get in trouble. Sam had to be an adult, thrust into the position he was a confused boy who only wanted to save his mom. Would mom make it back?

He worried about this, but only for several moments, for now his mind was dreaming up new ways of taking care of him and his brother. How would I do it? I could go to Penny's place, they might take us in. That would be a better life; Penny's mom is nice and has a regular job. And for a moment Sam was content with his mom not returning. Trailing off to sleep his worried mind dreamed up a movie and then in the middle of the night he awoke to the apartment door closing. Knowing it was his mom from the sound of her shuffling feet, he went back to sleep content that the world had not been swept out from under his feet. It was a fearful notion, but and one Sam thought about regularly, in fact it was becoming a daily thought, a daily fear.

One time back when Sam was five, his mom had answered the door at their old apartments around ten PM while Sam and Dan were asleep and it was a very bad man who stood at the door. The man had somehow taken out a kitchen knife from its hiding place threatening to kill his mom with it if she didn't have sex with him. Ushering his mom along, he then closed her bedroom door locking it and her with him. Fortunately Sam had awoken to some strange sounds and bad feelings.

Going to that ominous bedroom door of his mom's he then knocked and called out to her continuously until she was able to answer. She came out with the man, safe, unscathed, and not raped. Sam saved his mom that night without even knowing it. The evil man left soon after they came out. It was the only time he had for his entire life, saved a piece of his mom. Not soon after this she moved them to the new apartments from the fear of a ghetto environment and what comes with it. She had been right in doing so and apparently knew how to make a few good choices.

Now that his mom was home Sam could sleep, she had not been killed or raped by a stranger. Sam didn't know what she had done, but she was safe and that was all that seemed to matter at the time. This wouldn't be the last time he worried his idea clouded head about her whereabouts and safeties.

Life carried on like this for several months. Avoiding bullies, using his Bigwheel like a drifting race car, and buying ice cream when the ice cream man song sang that sweet tune throughout the airwaves with the few dimes he could scrounge up. It was all so marvelous for several months. The apartment's pool even opened in the summer so cannonball calls could be heard all around as if the kids were the French foreign legion at the battle of Waterloo.

The summers in Dallas are sticky sweet, moisture hangs in the air just like the mosquitoes that hung around Sam's legs. When he killed the mosquitoes by them with cat-like reflexes, it would leave wet blood that would mix in with his humid sweetened skin. Wiping it off he would just move on wondering why they loved legs so much. Little did Sam know that every ice cream he ate made them love him all the more, making his blood sweet with fats and sugar. One could even assume the mosquitoes recognized the ice cream man's song as a dinner bell and acted on the chimes accordingly.

One day mom took him and Daniel to the movies, this was the first time Sam could remember a song. Playing on the car radio it was Madonna with "Like a Virgin" and he had no idea what she was saying. Yet he sang it all the same as if the words were clearly understood in his virgin mind. I can't recall what movie I saw, but the song, the song he would remember for years to come. The chorus was catchy, "Like a virgin, touched for the very first time."

All the kids would try to recite it and some would get it right. Sam would always accidentally make lyrics up as he tried his best to sing and understand just what the wild woman said. I'll be so cool if I can sing it perfect he thought. That novelty eventually wore off because there were always other popular songs out, songs that Sam would never hear about until his friends made fun of him for not being on the up and up.

But just like bubbles these songs would pop in and out of fashionable existence, making remembering them unimportant when it came to understanding the grandiose design of American society. Something Sam always had a hard time grasping due to all the charismatic distractions of perpetual propaganda excreted out of the talking media heads.

The night, just like the day, was still hot with humid Texas heat making Sam wear just shorts at night. He was hard pressed to even wear shoes at this young age, opting for rugged bare feet to develop into something resembling soles of shoes. Sam even noticed he could walk on baked blacktops for several minutes without being in discomfort from the heat due to his calloused feet.

Tonight was something special for him. Sam was able to hang out in his mom's room and watch a horror movie. This was a rarity since his mom kept the TV in her room and usually she was working the phone. The last place he wanted to be when she had a call. The movie was "Night of the Living Dead" an old black and white movie filled with cannibalistic walking dead people.

It was an impressive film for sure. Sam could barely hold on with eyes open watching these goryful horrifyingly-happy scenes. This would be the first movie he ever remembered watching and it would be the first time his mom would threaten to leave him.

Daniel also timidly was watching, but suddenly, and quite rudely about twenty minutes before the ending mom received a call. This meant everyone needed to shut up, and clear the room. Well the shutting up part didn't happen. The client heard Sam and Dan, consequently hanging up. Sam couldn't be happier, for now he could watch the rest of this highly enthralling movie. Mom on the other hand, was enraged!

Why didn't you boys be quiet when the phone rang?! You know this is how I make money and if I don't take every call we can be kicked out for not paying the rent! I just don't know if I can do this anymore, this is too tough for me! I should just give you boys away to a foster home. I can't take care of you!

Both Sam and his brother pleaded. No mom please don't do that, we'll be good, and we'll be quiet next time. We're sorry for messing up.

I just don't know what to do, I can't take this anymore and you boys are just too much to handle for a single mom. I'm just going to leave you because I can't take this anymore!

Sam and his brother pleaded again. Mom no please don't leave us, we love you mom please don't be mad. We'll be good and help more we promise!

Mom grabbed some belongings and left. Sam and Dan were distraught. Now all of a sudden in an explosive instant, life was inexpressibly complicated.

Questions ran through Sam's youthful head. What will I do? How will I take care of Daniel? How will I get food? Where will I live? How do I survive!

No answers came, the only thing Sam could figure was again that maybe he could live with Penny and her mom while his brother would go elsewhere. Hours into the night he started to feel comfortable with the idea of mom never coming back. The shock had almost worn off by then. There would be no more yelling or fighting he thought. Also I could live with someone that has a normal life, a normal job, and eats normal food.

Before these thoughts and sleep could set in permanently for these lonely boys, mom was opening the door. She had left for about three hours and it was late into the night. Daniel would be the first to run towards mom, Sam slowly followed with some coercing from mom's smiling tearful red puffy face. It felt to Sam as if this was bedraggled encouragement. First time experiences are precious and this first was beautiful sadness for Sam. The comprehension of understanding he was all alone in the world and that he had no control over the loneliness another person could dispose on him was starting to sink in. It turned his heart inside out. He wished for his father, the person he last remembered loving him unconditionally and who never told him to shut up. The love he received from mom came with a hefty perplexing price tag filled with obscurities.

Eventually Sam's mom made enough money in her phone sex business to move into a three bedroom two story house a few miles from the apartments. Business was booming for her. Sam rarely saw mom, even though she was just in the next room upstairs.

Unfortunately he could always hear her, making this new life the old life, just with more stuff and more space to put the stuff. Sam had started to find that mom was a pack-rat; she would have stacks of old unread newspapers piled knee high. When Sam tried to rid the house of them she would get angry and say I'll read them one day so don't throw them out. Stack them on the game table. The table was long enough to sit eight and mom had bought it in the move. It was now a place for more stuff and no games. Although Sam would pretend to fly his Lego spaceships on the newspapers like they were landing strips.

Soon after those horribly lonely three hours of night Sam had endured at their old apartments, he found the only way to keep more peace in the house was to help out in every way he could. So he cooked, he cleaned, he watched Daniel, he fed Mitten, and then at random moments Sam would help mom by hanging up the phone quietly in the living room after she ran upstairs and picked it up in her bedroom. He would, in hanging up the phone, regrettably hear the wisps of his mom's voice as she spoke those sultry opening hellos.

Daniel would laugh it up and continue to be a little baby, an attitude he never lost. This always would make Sam's life all the tougher. He had a growing feeling that nobody really seemed to know or care about the struggles of a naive little boy forced into being a man in a backwards world filled with intangible heroes.

### Author Bio

Samuel Joseph Bass was born in Long Island, NY on August 22, 1979. He was the first child of Elizabeth Vining and Howard Bass, his mother a model with Eileen Ford and his Father was an ex-family New York lawyer who also fathered his younger brother. Even though he was never in school past sixth grade, Bass has become a renaissance man after a long passionate and never-ending thirst for reading and knowledge. Bass has lived in six US states and is an avid world traveler from hitchhiking on sailboats to make it to most of the worldly destinations; he studied many different cultures, history, sciences, cooking, and ways of interpreting society while seeking true freedoms in life. Writing poetry and short stories from the young age of eleven, his craze for the arts was curtailed when he had to take the heavy burden of struggling to survive all alone financially and physically after being hit head on by a two ton semi-truck at twenty one years old. When he returned to California in February of 2008 from hitchhiking on sailboats he had gained a renewed passion for writing fiction and poetry. Later in 2011 after moving to central Oregon where he currently resides, he continued his schooling in college majoring in English at UO and COCC. To read more of his current works please visit www.samuelbass.com.

### Chapter Five

### Homeless Story

### by

### Suzie Gumm

There is a man I give money to, who sits on the corner at Canal St. and Obsidian. I think he might be around my age, but it is hard to know. His face is weathered and very tan, like old leather. He has an unkempt white beard and brilliant blue eyes, and he isn't very tall. His clothing is an assortment of worn and dirty layers in nondescript colors, and the man's hands when he takes the money I give him are rough and ingrained with dirt. They look strong.

There is a bicycle the man rides, I have seen him on it; it is yellow and has a heavy frame, like a bike from many years ago. You know, with wide tires and a box fastened on the back with bungee cords. The bike leans against the telephone pole near where the man sits. He has a folded blanket he sits on, on the curb, and his dog curls up beside him, sleeping. I am glad he has a dog. She is black and white and medium size, with startling eyes, she is a herding dog. Sometimes, when it is really cold, she is not there. Once I asked him where she was, and he said she stays home on cold days, she doesn't like the cold. I wonder what he means by 'home?' Does he mean a camp somewhere? Am I judging him by thinking him to be homeless?

My sister and I were talking one time about panhandlers and I told her about the man I give money to. She told me her Pastor at church suggested that people create little 'care packages" with plastic bags holding things like granola bars and coupons for meals and toothbrushes. Then they could give these to street people without worrying that they were "contributing to their problems."

I have thought about this often.

When I give money to the man on the corner, I also give him the dignity of spending it however he chooses. It is freely given. If I were to pack a little plastic bag with 'care items' wouldn't I also be packing it with my judgments and my convictions that I know best what is needed?

But I don't kid myself that I am all that altruistic. Giving money to my favorite homeless man makes me feel good. I usually have a few bucks in my car, just for this reason. Sometimes, I even give up my coffee money, which really gives me a satisfied feeling. Once I was out of change and I gave him a twenty dollar bill. I lived on that one for a week.

It is hard to do right. It is easy to give a few bucks. I should ask him his name. But I don't. He is just the man I give money to sometimes.

Authors Bio

Suzie is a student at Oregon State University/Cascade, and an avid writer.

### Chapter Six

### The Avocado Kid

### by

### Samuel R. Burns

The only thing greener than this tenderfoot was the Avocado orchard that surrounded the tiny corral. He wasn't tall but you sure thought he was. Surely never a cowboy there ever was that had this pair of legs, like two halves of a doughnut in blue. Of course, there was no horse and he wasn't looking for a wrangler's spot on a western movie set. This kid had just landed from a jacked up 4X4 pickup with Montana plates, and his boots crunched as he landed on the seashell drive. His was more a waddle than a strut as he approached me to "inquire within."

"Howdy. Saw the sign. You the one I talk to?" I had to feel this guy out. This kid had on a straw hat, pearl snap shirt, and the shortest pair of Levi's I ever laid eyes on. Add the boots outside the pants, and this cowboy is strutting on his knees. About half way across the lot, he chucked his chew and straightens up and we are eye to eye. I count nine, no maybe ten snaps down the front, his shirts have to be custom. He's all trunk, and his arms tapped his knees.

His hair is red and cropped short. Everything about him is red; the freckles are many but they can't hide his smile. That toothy grin was as big as the grill on his rig, and just as shiny. A few of the other residents came over when they heard the roar of the truck so close to their houses. He told us his name but said everybody just called him "Red," so we forgot it immediately. We soon learn he is getting out of the Marines shortly and needed a place with room for a horse. Red looked around and decided this little green oasis was unlike any place he had ever seen. We decided to show him around the place.

The property has seven bungalows; six are supported by a main house that has cooking and bathing facilities. Avocado starts, plants, bushes, and every other phase of growth placed around and through the paths connecting, the bungalows are everywhere. It's like an aviary without the net to keep the birds indoors. My place is self-contained and on the other side of the corral and partially hidden by avocado trees. The entire compound is nestled in the foothills of northeastern San Diego County surrounded with trees in excess of forty feet. The property is more than five acres so we had a good buffer of trees and land to any road. The place was quiet and secluded.

Red was looking to rent the open bungalow and wanted to know if for extra money he could board a horse. If one looked very hard and could imagine a shelter for a horse, the old lean-to might work, but it needed fixing up. He volunteered to do any work necessary to get the corral ready for an animal. He was in. When he moved in, although he didn't look the look, he walked as if he knew horses so we weren't concerned about the animal's arrival. He worked for weeks readying the corral and cleaning his tack. Red's folks had sent all his gear on a Greyhound. The mood was like Christmas that hot day in July as he opened the big box. When he got to the saddle, he gave it a big jerk forgetting how light it was, he went over backwards and landed on his funny bone; the beer flowed like eggnog that night.

Red, like everybody else got his mail thrown on the table in the main house. One just fished through it until he or she found something with their name on it. In the meantime, you know who gets what from whom. We noticed Red received a lot of mail from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The newspaper soon followed his arrival and we all thought that was real civil. The only rule was that Red had first crack at the paper, then everybody was welcome to read it. We were all sitting on the patio one Sunday, reading the funnies and barbequing some burgers when Red announced that on Labor Day weekend, he was bringing his horse home.

As the big day neared, we all got into the act. We painted the corral fence and a couple of the girls planted some carrots. We planned a party and I think everybody thought the rodeo was in town. In this part of the country, rodeos come to town. This is thoroughbred country, and Burns racing stables dot the open country. The Del Mar racecourse is only miles away and the Marines at Camp Pendleton put on the only rodeo for a hundred miles, again only miles away. It only happens one weekend a year, and not this weekend.

A couple of days before he was to leave to get the beast, he caught me at the mail table and asked to borrow two hundred dollars. He said all the corral work and buying the horse trailer put him a little short. He didn't want to leave without a little cushion as he put it. I had been working a lot and did not help much so I chipped in. He said he was paid next week. Red left on Friday to much fanfare. The girls had put crepe paper on the trailer and bought a bale of hay from who knows where for the bed of the 4X4. We did not have a clue where the horse was or what type it was or anything. It was all a big secret and we bought it hook, line, and sinker. Red's return and the subsequent party were set for Sunday afternoon about four. The parking lot was full of rigs when Red's truck rumbled through the trees to the seashell drive and came to a halt. We walked up to the trailer and were confronted by a completely outraged, trapped animal confined to the trailer that showed the skin of the trailer dented everywhere from the inside out. The noises we heard did not register with the horses in the westerns we had seen. There was not a wrangler among us and Red was scratching his head. He said the nag had started bucking and shaking about fifty miles back and he barely kept the trailer upright. He was sure that getting him out of the trailer was the key to getting him to settle down. We agreed to help not knowing what that was, but there was safety in numbers?

It took our short-legged cowboy an hour to get a bridle over the nags' ears and a bit in his mouth. Cooperation was not his middle name. In fact, I was sure he had no middle name. This animal was a four-legged curse in a can and Red was his can opener. To this day, I believe it was all an act. That devil backed down the ramp as if he knew it was his path to freedom. As soon as Red let all four feet hit the seashells, the nameless beast struck. The wild horses are sold as is; the shoeing of these nags was not the BLM's priority so when the tender feet of that already wild buckaroo hit those sharp, jagged small shells the four-legged dervish was nothing short of unleashed chaos. There were two ropes on him and two people on each line, and we were just along for the ride. This yet unnamed devil went zigzagging and kicking through the parking lot and damaged every rig, he got near. The only redeeming quality of this nightmare was that he was kicking and rearing his way towards the open corral gate with us in tow hanging on for dear life. We thought later as we picked the bits and pieces of shell out of our shredded legs that we somehow mitigated the carnage. Everyone drank like heroes after the battle, but before the war was over. We assumed once in the corral the nameless devil would calm down. He did not. He went to the water trough and took a good drink then resumed his rampage. He started on his bedroom; two kicks and the back walls were kindling but couldn't get out because the avocado trees kept him in. Did I mention he was black? He had a huge head and a long black mane that was a mess. No comb had feathered that majestic plume. Red said he was seventeen hands and he looked like he was ten feet tall. Those two measurements don't add up but you get idea, this was a monster. As the afternoon wore on and we worked to keep ahead of the carnage, the beer began to take a toll. There was no way to deal with this brute. Everybody was screaming about insurance to get his or her rigs fixed and the damage was still happening in real time.

There is no polite word to name this maelstrom. The unnamed disaster has ruined our party, caused thousands of dollars in damage to cars and real estate and the beat goes on. The wind slowed for an hour so we breathed a sigh of relief. Someone suggested we feed him and the bale of hay was tossed over the fence, wire intact. He ate his fill, calmly sauntered over to the fence, and tore the top rail off in his mouth. He then reared back and stomped the lower two rails and was free in the now deserted parking lot. Red had positioned his 4X4 across the drive opening making the parking lot a bigger corral. The devil wind reared up and kicked the pickup a couple of times then started cantering around looking for a way out through the orchard. He was gone. If you have never been in an avocado orchard, there is virtually no way to see anyone go any direction unless you are directly behind them in hot pursuit.

Red was frantic and we have ceased to care. Most of the corral was destroyed, the area around the parking lot was damaged to the point of despair and now the beast is loose on the countryside. Before Red can jump in his battered truck and look for the devil, we collar him. We want to know where "his" horse has been. He takes a deep breath and asks for a beer. He tells the whole story. He grew up on a ranch in Montana, and because his legs were so short, he never could ride very well. He couldn't use his legs to grip the horse. When he joined the Marines, he told his friends that he was a cowboy, and even though he wore boots and shirts with pearl snaps and chewed tobacco, they all laughed because he didn't look the part. He decided when he got out he would get a horse and show his buddies he was a cowboy. He didn't have enough money to buy a horse broke to ride so he started looking for wild horse auctions that the BLM has from time to time to keep from having to put down so many of the ones they capture. The horses are $125 apiece and you haul them away, no exchanges. The BLM mailings were bulletins announcing auctions.

Red had the horse less than twenty-four hours, and a wild, unbroken horse was loose on the countryside, we had to call somebody. About that time, we heard a shot, then another. We ran out to the road and saw our bewildered beast frolicking down the road. I tell you this animal is human. He proceeded to turn down the lane and run back to the corral, as if he'd been coming there for years. It was the darndest thing any of us ever saw. It was time for a beer. It was near dark when we had "Mr. Wizard" corralled. Red said he thought of the cartoon character Mr. Wizard on the Tennessee Tuxedo show. Mr. Wizard received his knowledge from his "3 D BB," a blackboard would appear and would impart some historic or scientific fact to aid the storyline. The information came quickly and Red thought the devilish beast was fast on his feet, all four of them, so Mr. Wizard.

The source and the location of the "shots fired" report the sheriffs filed never came to light. No one ever inquired about a horse on the loose so when Mr. Wizard gave us little trouble after the first afternoon, we welcomed him to the fold, sort of. We decided after many beers that our secluded location was Mr. Wizard's best friend. When he's in the corral, he is undetectable from the road. We are assured he will be well fed, and constant visitors to the compound hopefully will keep him occupied and quiet. Red has decided that when he loads the trailer for a trip, he will go under the cover of darkness to add to the mystery. After a time our biggest complaint, mainly from me, is the amount and delay of removal of the road apples.

Finally, the day arrives when Red approaches the corral with the tools of the trade. He's jangling as his shiny spurs drag the ground and spin in the dawning light. His Stetson is cocked to one side, and his cheek is swollen with a new plug. He is sporting a lime green western shirt with enough pearl snaps to make a necklace. Unfortunately, not all those defining touches of the cowboy can get past the shortest, and bluest pair of Levi's one ever saw. He walked by the fence, and the sun caught him flat going across the corral, and his silhouette was a perfect doughnut, a perfect dark orb, like an eclipse of the sun showing through his bow legged stumps on the soft loam of the corral. We all got our chairs and a beer to watch the show. Red had sunk a small telephone pole in the middle of corral, and we knew he was going to try saddling Mr. Wizard today.

I was on my second beer by the time our roping magician got a rope around Mr. Wizard's neck. By the fourth beer, Red was still trying to get a loop around the pole when another problem confronts him. By now physics and geometry are at work and not in favor of Red, whom we've decided is "The Avocado Kid." The Kid is short and with the green shirt and those blue duds, he had to have a nickname. The horse is tall. The pole is taller than both of them are. Red finally ropes "Wiz," renamed due to the loss of all respect for the beast and "wizard" is too long--and gets a loop around the pole when he finds the rope is around the pole too high for him to use any leverage to get him close enough to saddle. He can't let go, or all his work is gone, and in order to use the rope he needs slack to keep looping the rope around the pole to get close enough. It is now a force of wills and Wiz is doing some damage. We are howling. This is the best show since we rolled gas filled tires off the cliff overlooking the ocean and placed bets on fire hitting the water. Never mind the quarter mile of brush to the sea. Red is getting green, hot and tired. No one has offered our cowboy a beer and that corral was a dusty place. Wiz, we are noticing, is also tiring of this madness.

Red, the Avocado Kid, made his final move to put Mr. Wizard in his place. With a mighty blast of air out of his lungs, he jerked on that rope and made his move to get that loop over the pole. Red had figured the height of the pole didn't matter, just that it stayed in the ground. Well when he couldn't loop the rope over the too tall pole, he cursed all afternoon. Not one saw was available that day, no one could leave the show, and it was too good to miss. Remember that The Kid is no wizard with a lariat and when he lost his grip for a second Wiz bolted with Red in tow. They did one lap around the corral with us yelling for him to let go to no avail. Wiz went through the top two rails and The Kid hit the third. Wiz shot through the orchard, and Red lay in the dust, unmoving. As we get to him, he starts to stir and we slow down.

Our concern now shifts to falling down laughter as we get to him. He was leaning on what hit him and was scratching his head when the first beer went down. He looked around at everyone laughing today, but there were insurance claims and bills associated with this beast that he didn't need. Everyone was laughing but him. Everybody said, "That beast is gone, forget it." Therefore, he did.

The cowboy career of The Avocado Kid ended that day. I'm not sure it ever started. What did happen was a kid had a dream and he took it as far as he could take it. He learned something from Mr. Wizard in the process. He named the horse after a cartoon character who thought fast on his feet. One learns by trying, and Red learned he is not a cowboy. He was a Marine. Red learned to think that day.

### Chapter Seven

### Shadow Under a Wave

### by

### Carly Ziegler

The only sound on the beach was the crashing of the waves. Over and over again, they crashed into one another under the star-lit sky. Jacob and Luann pulled off the highway into a viewpoint.

"I can't believe Roy let you come out here, for all he knows I could be a serial killer."

"He's not the boss of me, and anyways, he keeps saying he'll teach me but he always forgets."

"Well, I'm still learning, so don't expect to learn from an expert tonight."

Luann laughed, "I think I'll pick it up nonetheless."

They opened their car doors and stumbled out, making their way around to the hatchback to pull out the surfboards. Luann leaned against Jacob's back as he maneuvered the board out of the car and slammed the hatch shut.

"Wait, I need to put this in the car. I can't lose it, my mom would kill me." Luann unhooked the chain around her neck and opened the back door. The car was a wreck inside; clearly the boys had been living out of it since they started their trip. Behind the seat was a cooler. Luann opened it and tossed the necklace inside; at least it would be safe there and wouldn't get lost in the sty.

I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drum

Oh what a shame that you came here with someone

So while you're here in my arms

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young

Luann pulled her flip phone out of the back pocket of her cut-off jean shorts, the pixilated ringtone drowning out the sound of the waves in the distance.

We're gonna die young.

"Kesha, huh? I had you pegged for a Roots kind of a girl," Jacob opened the front door to lock the car as he gazed over at Luann.

We're gonna die young.

Looking at the screen, Luann pressed a button on the side of the phone to silence the chorus and slipped the phone back into her pocket.

"C'mon Luann! We gotta beat the sun."

They hopped over the bushes and started down the sand, stripping their clothes and leaving a trail to follow back to the car. Running into the waves, they laughed, fell against the water and swam out, treading to stay afloat. Luann picked it up naturally; she stood up on her third wave. Jacob was dumbfounded. He was falling in love. He told himself it was just admiration. Her shadow under the wave rode peacefully, steadily in front of him. Beautiful.

The next morning, Brian found Jacob asleep on the beach in his boxers next to his surfboard and a pile of his clothes. He kicked Jacob awake.

"Hey. Fuck off." Jacob mumbled in his sleep.

"Dude, what happened?"

"I don't know, I think we went surfing last night."

"Where's Luann?"

"She must've gone home," his eyes were still closed, but he was squinting in the light of the morning sun.

"Cool, Roy just texted me looking for her. I'll tell him she's at home. I thought maybe you got with her."

"Don't think so, man. She's mad about Roy. But I was pretty loaded so you never know what might have happened."

"Rad. I bet you passed out and she just ditched you. You want to catch a few before breakfast?"

Surf. That woke Jacob right up; he was always ready for the next adventure. He pushed himself up off the sand, picked up his board and looked out at the crashing waves. Perfect.

"Let's hit it."

The waves crashed into the sea behind them as they ran out of the water toward their heap of clothes on the beach.

"That was rad, dude, so epic. You alright?" Brian looked back at Jacob, who hadn't gotten up on a single wave all morning.

"I don't know what my deal is, I can't get up today. My head is screaming, every time I stand the waves barrel over me." Jacob looked out into the horizon, the waves shrieking as they crashed into one another.

"It's all good, we all have our days," Brian tried to console his friend as they took turns swigging off a Gatorade bottle. He reached for his phone inside his pants pocket. "I just got another text from Roy, Luann's not at home." He slipped his phone back into the side pocket of his pants and tossed them back onto the heap in the sand. "That's weird, why isn't she a--"

I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drum

Oh what a shame that you came here with someone

So while you're here in my arms

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young

Jacob and Brian both froze. They looked at each other, down to the heap of clothes on the sand, and back to each other.

We're gonna die young

We're gonna die young

"That's not---"

"It can't be," Jacob knelt down and began digging through the clothes. Picking up a t-shirt, he uncovered the flip phone. The little screen on the front read Roy and the phone vibrated as the chorus began to play again.

I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drum

Oh what a shame that you came here with someone

They stared at the phone, after a minute the screen light went out and the music faded. As they stared again at each other, a breeze passed over and chilled the air on the beach. Brian knelt down and dug around for his clothes. He put his shirt on inside out and backwards. "We gotta get off the beach, man." He hopped on each foot as he put a sandy sock and shoe on the other. Jacob was navigating his way through the pile for a sock, upon finding it; he sat down and began dressing his feet, still shirtless and shivering. Brian dug through the sand, feeling his way around frantically. After a few moments, he pulled his hands out of the sand and tossed his keys from one hand to the other.

"Hope she starts up easy this morning. Come on dude, seriously, we gotta be gone. Now." He started to run down the beach towards the bushes that hid the viewpoint pullout on the highway. Jacob jumped up, picked up the last of the laundry pile and took off after Brian, sprinting through the sand to catch up.

Brian kept his head down as he ran, and wondering what would happen to them if they didn't get off that beach. As they made their way through the sand, he noticed the scattered clothes that had earlier seemed to speak to the Saturday morning rush. Now they were leading to the car, one piece at a time. He remembered Roy's comment at the bar the night before about Luann's short shorts and how those tank tops drove him crazy.

The old Volvo was still there. Haggard and tired, it looked like it would like to stay parked there forever. Brian threw all of his weight into the clutch and turned the key. "Sweet dude, we're golden. I swore we were gonna have to jump her. Let's go."

"Brian, we left the boards down on the beach, I have to grab mine real quick."

"Dude, we can't, man," he trailed off as Jacob took off, hurdling the bushes and sprinting through the sand towards a lonesome board.

While Jacob messed around with the surfboard, the least of their problems, Brian turned the car around, preparing to peel out of there as soon as the board was loaded. Luann clearly hadn't made it home, and he wasn't about to wait for Roy to catch up to them to find out where she ended up.

Jacob jumped in the back as he loaded the board, pulled the hatch down after himself and somersaulted over seats as Brian peeled out, racing time down the windy road.

"Are we low on fuel?" Jacob leaned over the center console to check the fuel gage on the dash. He opened up the glove box and pulled out a thick wad of cash, stuffing it in his pocket.

"I thought you were out of money." Brian nudged Jacob to get him out of the way as he tried to change gears.

"I told you Brian, the good Spirit takes care of me, takes care of you too, dude. Ain't gotta worry, we're always alright."

"I don't know about you, man. Nothing but trouble, that's for sure."

"Brian, that's not fair. It hasn't been all trouble. It's mostly fun, right? I mean, come on. We learned how to surf, got what we came for. You rode some insane waves this morning, dude!"

"Yeah, I know. It's definitely been a trip. Let's pull off here and get some gas before we drive back up the coast. I'm going to grab some snacks for the ride."

"Right on dude. How much you want, will forty fill the tank?"

"Close enough. You want some Fritos?"

"Barbeque flavored. Oh-and some of those little chewy red things, like last time."

Jane's Addiction was playing as Brian walked back toward the car. He couldn't help but smile and let out a laugh as he watched Jacob rock out, singing into his shoe, jerking his head back and forth, punching the air. The highway swerved, curved, and opened up wide to swallow that raggedy old Volvo. Jane's Addiction. Beatles. ACDC. Sublime. The Rolling Stones. Jacob turned up the music, and the boys sang at the top of their lungs, drumming the beat on the dashboard, leaving all of their worries in Santa Monica as they drove north towards Marin County. The station went to a commercial break, and after a beat Jacob reached over to turn the dial. Searching for another station, he landed a signal just in time to catch the last half of a Billy Joel hit.

They say there's a heaven for those who will wait

Some say its better but I say it ain't

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints

Sinners are much more fun.

You know that only the good die young

He stared out at the road ahead of him, his eyes welled up with shame. Turning off the music, he gulped as they rode on in silence. The crash of the waves echoed in his mind. The screaming out of the darkness. The wreckage of his negligence. The clear, starlit sky and the moonlit beach. There had been two surfboards on the beach this morning. She couldn't have gone home, she hadn't even made it back to shore. A knot welled in the pit of Jacob's stomach as the memory of the night before washed over him and yanked his spirit out from under him like an undercurrent.

Jacob veered the car down an exit ramp as the sun laid against the tips of the mountains in the distant north. The purple silhouettes jutted out of the surrounding forests, charging the coming night. Brian let out a soft snore, as his head dropped off his hand, hitting the door, and pounding himself awake.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know, I think I might have missed the turn to head east a ways back, but I didn't want to wake you."

"How long was I asleep? We couldn't be too far off."

"Well, that depends. Where were we when you fell asleep?"

"We had just gotten through Frisco."

"Oh, that was like six hours ago, dude."

Brian yawned, climbed over the backseat and maneuvered the surfboard around to open up the cooler sideways. He shuffled the food around. As he searched for his roast beef sandwich, a chain necklace with a gothic cross spilled out onto the stained, grimy carpet. He froze.

"What's up man? You look like you've seen a ghost." Jacob peered at Brian's pale face through the rearview mirror. "Hey is there another sandwich in there, I had one earlier, but I'm starving."

Brian scooted away from the necklace as much as he could in such tight quarters. "Shh..." Brian tried to speak.

"Maybe I'll move to the beach, I need a change."

"Shh..."

"Maybe next year, I'm supposed to go to school this ter--"

"Fuck dude! What the fuck!"

Jacob jumped in his seat, his elbow coming down hard against the window.

"Ouch, what's your problem?" He jerked his head back to find Brian hovering next to the surfboard, his jaw weighing his face down so that his head might fall right off his neck. Jacob froze. Eyeing Brian up and down, Jacob sat motionless, the waves came back again. He heard the muffled screams under them, crashing, over and over. He remembered Luann, the way her hair held its wave in the salt water, her explosion of laughter as she stood up for the first time and rode. The crashing of the waves surrounded them; his heart ached as he treaded water. She shuttered as he embraced her, let out a nervous chuckle. He had kissed her, under the moonlight. He pulled the car off of the road and sat still.

Brian carefully returned his sandwich to the cooler, scooped up the ice that had spilled over, and meticulously climbed back over the back seat, opened the back door and stepped out of the car. They were parked on a dirt road, just off the off-ramp, before gas stations and restaurants popped up on the little side road in the distance. He walked past the front of the car and Jacob held his breath as he watched him go.

After the devastation of what he had done was slowly absorbed, Jacob quietly got out of the driver's seat, left the car door open, and followed Brian down the dirt road, which seemed to go on forever in an open field, without a house or a car disrupting its path for miles.

"Brian," he didn't know what to say. There was nothing he could say to undo the ugly mess he had gotten them both into. There were no words to take back the memory of that wretched night. "Brian, I'm sorry, man. I don't know what happened."

Silence.

"The night got away from me, it was an accident. Well, not really an accident--but I didn't mean to take her. I think it was supposed to be a joke but I forgot to finish. It was supposed to end, I think, I can't remember, I can't figure it out. I'm sorry, man. I don't know what happened; I don't know what I was thinking."

"Whatever, man."

"You gotta understand, I didn't do it on purpose, it just kind of happened."

"I know, it doesn't matter, dude." Brian was resolute, he stood there waiting. Not sure what he was waiting for, but he stood there anyway, waiting. They stood in silence, both waiting.

"What should we do?" Jacob looked back toward the car, at Brian, and to the highway. The cars hummed quietly as they rushed by the exit.

"What do you think we should do?" Brian turned to look directly at him.

"I don't know, man."

"You got us into this--you've gotta get us out of this one."

"I think I'm gonna throw up, this is weird. You know she wasn't from there? She told me she was from Washington, near Seattle."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"She said she would live and die in the mountains, just went to Cali to explore a little."

"Too bad she only found the ugly in a beautiful place like that."

"She didn't even surf, never learned how. Can you imagine? Living in the sand and never learning how to surf?"

The boys stood in silence, side by side, arms crossed, looking out into the abyss of the open road.

"Let's go, I know someplace we can go."

"Where is it?" Jacob followed Brian back to the car and got in the passenger's seat, ready to let anyone else run the show for a while.

"We're heading east; I've got a friend that will let us crash while we clean up your mess. He's a climber, so he's pretty chill."

"Okay."

They started up the on-ramp and momentarily fell into place, moving synchronized with all of the other little cars, going along with their humdrum lives. They looked the same, all of the cars looked the same, and the raggedy old Volvo blended right in.

"What I can't figure out, Jacob, is why you went off with her in the first place. I was sure you knew Roy'd kill you if you got with her. But then, he just stayed at the bar. It's like he didn't notice her leaving with you."

"I don't know, man. He was pretty high; maybe he just couldn't care enough to follow us."

"Maybe you're right."

"Luann said that was his first time smoking pot, he never even drank till after high school."

Brian glanced over to the other seat; Jacob's breaths were getting shorter. He was sitting straight up in his chair, blankly staring through the dark at the unraveling highway ahead of him.

"It's gonna be ok, we'll figure it out, man."

"She's gone, she's just... gone."

"Jacob, calm down. I told you, we'll figure it out."

"I didn't mean to, it was an accident, I fucked up."

They rode into the night, into the silence, and Brian didn't know if they'd ever be able to figure it out.

It was two o'clock in the morning when they pulled up outside the apartment complex. Brian parked across the street and lightly shook Jacob.

"Hey," he whispered, "we're here. Wake up, man. We're here."

"Where are we?" Jacob looked around outside, groggy, with one eye still shut. He couldn't see anything.

"We're at my buddy's; we can crash here for the night."

"Is he even up?"

"Yeah, I just texted him. Let's get inside, we'll crash and work everything out in the morning."

"Okay."

Jacob and Brian crept up the stairs to the apartment, Brian slowly turned the doorknob and they tiptoed into the living room. A light was on around the corner in the kitchen and Toby came around with a few water bottles and a bag of chips.

"What's up buddy?" He gave Brian a bear hug. "You guys look like you could use a drink. Here." Toby handed them each a bottle of water.

"You hungry?" He handed Brian the chips as he stuck out his hand towards Jacob.

"I'm Toby, you're Jacob? Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too." Jacob took his hand and tried to shake it firmly, but he had been drained of strength hours ago. "Thanks for letting us crash; I know its short notice."

"No worries, bro. I know you're in a bind. I've been there, it's cool."

"Thanks, man. It's good to see you, it's been a while." Brian patted Toby on the back and looked around the apartment. There wasn't much furniture, a worn loveseat sofa, a TV on a stand, and a small table in the corner of the room with a few books and a candle sitting on top of it. Leaning against the wall next to the TV were two crash pads back to back, chalk bags and shoes strewn across the floor in front of them.

"One of you can have the sofa, and one of you uses the crash pads, I'll go grab a few blankets.We'll kick it in the morning, it's pretty late."

"Thanks."

Jacob pulled the crash pads away from the wall and laid them down side by side, tightly fitting them between the TV stand and the sofa, they spread across the entire width of the room. He dropped the crash pad and was snoring before Toby made it back with the blankets.

There was a loud banging outside, Brian woke up and checked his watch. Four AM. He had just gotten to sleep, what could possibly go wrong now? The banging came back, he rolled over. Silence. Banging again, this time it was closer. Jacob and Brian were both awake now. Silent, they met each other's eyes. It was time. Silence again, Jacob held his breath, closed his eyes and prayed for it to be over.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Someone was pounding on the apartment door.

"Somebody get that..." Toby called from the bedroom at the back of the apartment, his voice muffled by his pillow. Brian got off the couch and crept over to the door, and tried to silently look through the peephole. But right as he lifted the cover to see Roy glaring at him from the other side, Roy's weight fell into the door, opening it with a crash, jolting Brian backward and pinning him between the wall and the door. Jacob was a puddle on the floor. He looked up at Roy with shame in his eyes.

"Roy! It was an accident; I swear it was an accident! You gotta believe me!"

Roy's huffed and howled, and his fury boiled through his veins. He pulled back his right arm and socked Jacob in the jaw. Jacob keeled over on to the floor, but rolled over and scrambled to get up onto his feet.

"Roy, please!"

Brian reached out for Roy's shoulder to pull him back, but tripped on the frayed corner of the worn crash pad and fell sideways. He scrambled to stand, caught a hold of the back of Roy's plaid Ralph Lauren button-up. The shirt slipped out from the khakis, held up with a thin, black leather belt. As it came untucked, Brian's hand slipped away and he fell backwards, hitting the back of his head against the window sill.

Another blow to the face sent Jacob flying backwards onto the couch. Bouncing up, he tried to plead with Roy and shove him into the wall.

"Get off me, man. It was an accident!"

Jacob took one more blow, this time to his belly, flattening him again onto the crash pad. Picking up one of his legs, Roy dragged Jacob out of the apartment and down the stairs.

"Roy. Stop! Brian! Help!"

Roy kept on dragging. Two blocks down, his truck was parked on the side of the street. He picked Jacob up off the ground, and sent him right back down again with a blow to the kidney. Brian raced down the sidewalk, trying to catch up. He tried to grab Roy's arm before he could do any more damage. It was no use; Roy flung his elbow back with all his might, hitting Brian square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. A few feet away, Jacob whimpered, sobbing through his blood. Blood-ridden drool covered his face, his whole body convulsed as Roy's foot could have ripped a hole in his kidney.

Brian watched his friend fight for his life, thunderstruck. Roy kicked Jacob as he lie sobbing on the ground, over and over again. Brian gathered his strength, pushed himself up off the ground, and leapt through the air to tackle Roy. He shoved Roy against the side of his truck.

"Stop it! Roy, stop! You're fucking killing him!"

Roy pushed Brian away, trying to break free from being pinned up against his pickup. Brian let go with his right hand, pulled his arm back, wound up, and punched Roy across the face. Roy spun to the side and began collapsing. He caught himself on his way down, resting his weight on the tire. Coughing, he breathed deep. His left fist clenched. Nothing could stop him, nothing could stop the pain. Nothing. He struck Brian in the kidney, a shocking blow that knocked him to his knees instantly.

"She's dead! She's dead and he killed her! Get, out!" He put his foot to Brian's chest and shoved him out of the way. Turning to Jacob, the fury exploded in his eyes.

"You killed her! I loved her and she's gone. You took her away from me, and I don't know how to live without her. You fucking dick you took my life away! What the fuck am I supposed to do now?! Fuck you!"

"I'm sorry Roy, I'm sorry. Luann I didn't mean--I didn't mean for it." Jacob sobbed, blood running into his mouth, choking his cries. "I'm sorry..."

Roy reached into the back of the pickup with both arms and brought out a small, lustrous surfboard. It had never been ridden.

"I bought this for Luann. She wanted to learn how to surf."

As tears filled his eyes, he raised the surfboard up as if offering it to the heavens and came down hard as nails on Jacob's face, breaking his neck. He picked it up off of the ground; his tears smeared the blood on his face as he raised it above his head. Another hit, again and again. He picked up the surfboard and swung it onto Jacob with all of his might. The last time the board came down Roy came down with it. Roy and the surfboard collapsing on top of Jacob.

"I'm sorry Luann, I'm sorry," Roy hugged the surfboard and cried like a child caught in the dark. "I should have been there; I should have taken care of you. I love you Lue, I love you so much. Please come back, Lue, please come back! I can't do this without you, I can't do..."

The sobbing slowed, and moaning could barely be heard above the wind as the stars shone down above them. Roy wiped the tears and blood from his face as he picked himself up and carried the broken board back to his pickup and gently set it in the back where it belonged. He reached for the door handle, glanced back to realize what had come of him, and loaded himself into the truck. Roy drove away, leaving his humanity behind on the curb, like so much garbage.

Brian knelt over Jacob's body, patting his cheek, gently shaking his shoulder. "Jacob, Jacob, wake up," Brian whispered into the night, "come on, it's over. It's over, it's okay. He's gone. Wake up." Nothing. "It's all over Jacob, wake up. Jacob! Jacob! Wake up, it's over! It's all over! Come on! Jacob, wake up, please wake up. Oh my god, Jake! Please... Please." It was all over. A calm breeze passed through the sidewalk, rustled the leaves, and carried Brian's subtle cries into the night. Looking up into the stars on a clear, warm night, tears cascaded down his face.

"Why?" He begged long and loud into the great, dark unknown, jerked his head forward between heaves and collapsed onto the ground at Jacob's side as if melting into the sand under a scorching August sun.

Jacob lies motionless on his side at the edge of the sidewalk. His head rested on the curb like a pillow, and his right hand hung off the sidewalk just above the street, a chain dangling from his fingertips, the large, gothic cross rests in peace on the ground below.

A sliver of light slipped through the sheets that hung on the wall to cover the window. The birds chirped outside in the front yard. The aroma of maple and coffee sifted into the living room and wafted over Brian, he rolled over onto his back as he opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling.

"Brian, you up, man?" Toby's voice drifted in from the kitchen. "Coffee's ready."

"Yeah," Brian slowly pushed himself up, off the couch, walked over to the window and pulled away the sheet to peer out at the sidewalk. Clean, crisp. The sun was up and the shadows on the tree-lined street danced in the breeze.

"You got some cream?"

"Milk okay?"

"Sure." Brian let go of the sheet and turned away from the window towards the kitchen. "Is that French toast?"

"Waffles. Ready for breakfast?"

"Sure thing."

"You want to climb today? I'm heading out in about an hour."

"Mmm, yea. That sounds real. I need to get out of my head, I need to learn something."

"This'll do it for ya, for sure. Here, drink some coffee."

They sped out of town in Brian's beat up, faded Volvo that had seen its fair share of bad days. But that faded egg-white boat still drove fast and handled the uneven dirt roads like they were breakfast.

I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drum

Oh what a shame that you came here with someone

"I can't stand Kesha," Toby turned off the radio.

"Thanks, man. That song makes me sick." Brian sank into his passenger seat and closed his eyes to fight back the tears. As they pulled up to the rock, Brian climbed out of the car and searched around, skirting around bushes and collecting sticks which he hucked into the forest for the dog. While his mind drifted, he left Toby to unload the Volvo. He threw the two crash pads and a chalk bag down on the dirt, sat down on the back bumper and lit a cigarette before he laced up his shoes. Those shoes were a curved version of ballet toe shoes, as if a dancer had wrapped her foot around a bar and the shoe stuck the position. They had holes that frayed from the side, allowing a breeze through the chokehold that held his feet.

"Ready, dude?" He tried to bring Brian back to Earth.

"You got some shoes I can use?"

"Yeah, try these; but they might be too big."

"Actually, I wear a nine and a half, and they look kinda small."

"They're supposed to be too small, if you put them on and they hurt a little, they're probably still too big."

"Whatever you say man, I just want to climb."

"Alright, let's go." Toby stood up and closed the hatch. They each picked up a crash pad and put them on their backs.

Just a few yards from the car, a few large boulders lined up to form an S curve, a wave of rock that threatened to pick up momentum and wipe out the old, battered Volvo. The boys carried the crash pads over to the rocks, dropped them on the ground, and unfolded them in front of the rock. Inside were a scramble of crackers, rolling tobacco and papers, a water bottle, and one dirty, black sock. Back at the car, the chalk bag rested, enjoying the final moments of solitude before the hours of abuse that were sure to begin soon.

Toby examined each hold that was low enough to touch from the ground, taking note of the first four moves of the problem while Brian stood back watching with anticipation, anxious for the rush to hit him.

"This is gonna be kind of tough, dude. You may want to try one of those over there for your first problem."

"I think I can handle it, it looks like fun."

"You might not get very far if you start here, but it's your call."

"Either way. I'll try this, and then I'll go try that."

Toby thrust his hand into the chalk bag as he walked back towards the rock. He clutches the powder inside, and covers his fingers and palms with chalk. Toby prepares both hands methodically, with a rhythm a foot could tap to unconsciously. He dusts off the excess chalk by swiping his hands with each other back and forth. As he knelt down, next to the pad, placing his lit cigarette carefully on a rock, he watched Jay come rushing around the corner with a branch in his mouth, wagging his tail with pride.

"Good boy, good boy." Brian knelt down to pet him. Jay dropped the branch at Brian's feet and sat instinctively at his side, but turned his attention to the rock and the pair stood still as they awaited the beauty of an early morning climb.

The first move of the climb crept along, as Toby meticulously placed each finger tip in its proper place. One foot at a time, he raised them up to the wall and traced the vertical crack in the boulder that seemed to pull his right side away from his left, until he found the hold where he might rest his entire 163 pounds on the very tip of his big toe. Once he was in place, he sprawled out against the rock, he took a slow, deep breath in and shifted his weight to his right foot as he hoisted himself up, reaching his left hand up for the next hold, catching the grip as if his hand had been reeled in with a fishing line.

With a firm grip on the new hold, he raised his left leg up and wrapped it around the curve of the boulder, bracing his ankle against an invisible crevice on the back side. From here, the climb began to take on a life of its own. His left hand moved to the left as his right reached up in search of a grip. His right foot followed each move, finding innumerable holds below his body, allowing a split second of rest between each move as his weight came down all onto the tip of his big toe, over and over again. The pairs of eyes watching the back of the climber never flickered. Brian's jaw hung unhinged, and he swayed lightly in the wind as he listened to the music of the moves.

Approaching the top out, Toby paused for a moment, allowing a break in the hypnotic dance that the rock had created using his body. In the distance, the crunch of a branch echoed, he turned his head to check the trees, scanning the forest for a stranger or a deer. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he turned his head back to the rock and tilted his head back to look up to the top out. He calculated three quick moves to hoist himself up and over, where he would be able to stand up, relax, and accept the feat nature had used him to master. As he reached up for the next hold with his left hand, Jay stood and shook out his coat, breaking the renewed silence.

Toby grasped the rock, the grain of the boulder digging into his fingertips. His left foot followed, finding its place just inches away from his right. As he lifted his right foot up, slowly, methodically, his right hand reached up for the next hold. Simultaneously, he found the holds and grasped the rock, hugging it one last time before he exploded his energy off of his right foot, reaching over the top of the rock with his right hand, followed closely by his left. With both hands over the top, his feet scrambled to catch up and as he pulled his knees in underneath him, he planted his feet and rose up to stand atop the boulder. The sun was just under the tip of the tree tops; the sky above them was a cool blue-gray that enveloped Toby as he breathed heavily, in awe of the boulder he had just mastered.

Brian clapped briefly from down below, turned, and picked up a long branch, hucking it into the trees for Jay, who took off instinctively before he had even chosen a branch. As Toby climbed down the backside of the rock, much more easily than he had gone up on the front side, Brian snatched the tobacco off of the ground and began rolling a cigarette. He rolled two, passed one over to his friend, and smirked with a chuckle under his breath.

"You realize I'm going to get addicted to this, right?"

Toby took a long pull, scoured the ground for his water bottle, took a drink, and threw it back towards the crash pad.

"Everyone gets addicted." Another long pull, Toby rubbed his hands together to wipe away the left over rock. "Do you meditate?" Brian's eyes left Jay in the distance, he looked over to Toby, searching.

"What'd you say? Meditate? No, not really. Why do you ask?"

"You need to. Grab that chalk over there."

### Author Bio

Carly Ziegler recently relocated back to her hometown, Bend, to relax, write, and most importantly, find adventures. She is currently pre-nursing at COCC, runs every day, and lets the wind take her where it will.

### Chapter Eight

### One Sided Phone Conversation Overheard in the Library

### by

### Anonymous

Thank God! I've called you three times and no reply, I was getting worried. Although, it is very hard to get a hold of me. I am almost out of minutes on my Tracfone.

I'll try to make this as simple as possible. I don't know exactly what is going on with me. Mary has thrust me into a different world. Philosophically, Mary is probably closer to Ann than I. I am not talking to Ann right now, she's just too depressing, but Mary is. I am living in a homeless shelter here in Bend.

Bend is not what Mary led me to expect. However, we had to move out of where Mary was, even if she had not been evicted. She was living over a meth dealer and a cooking kitchen run by the Mexican Cartel, very serious stuff, probably 100s of thousands of dollars a night, police bought off, whole nine yards. Mary has not changed a bit, she is mostly concerned with Mary, but she tries.

I have no car, no money, and am completely overwhelmed. I meditate at a Buddhist Temple down the street. I was told I can heal my back that way. I don't take any medication because I can't even afford aspirin.

There are people living here from all over the world. I think the best person I have met has been the monk from the temple Bhanti; he is from Sri Lanka. In one hour, he gave me more ideas than anyone and really knew me.

My handicapped bus pass is very helpful. The Parks and Rec. is hiring now, but they would only pay $10.00 an hour. I'm still checking out the Security Guard thing. You were probably initially right about that.

I have so much stuff to tell you, it's too much for one phone call.

Possibly they may fix the phone in my room, which would be the cheapest way for you to reach me. I'll let you know.

Here's the deal. I almost split up with Mary when she brought us here. We are participants in the Illumination Foundation, check their web site. You call this an "Interim Housing Program". Everyone here is in them. However, Ryan is at camp this week. We are living in probably a 200 square foot room I don't know how that is going to work out long-term. Mary is on Prozac and Lorazapam, she cries constantly and does nothing but talk about her dead boyfriend. So far, I have avoided seeing Steven, but I hear him on the phone and hear about him every day. Steven has not changed a bit.

Mary has no clue as to what is going on with me. Maybe no clue at all. She is doing her process serving thing which I think is kind of dangerous, I don't know exactly where her guns are, not on her, she was supposed to get pepper spray. This is crazy here!

I think I wish I had gone to California, but I am trying not to make any judgments yet. There are several problems with Mary's income from Steven that I don't understand. Although Mary hasn't quite got onto this yet, process serving is like a straight commission job.

Andre is living is San Francisco with a rich friend. I gather he's not doing all that great either. Probably still doing drugs, having a hard time surviving. His SSI ran out, money is probably low. He's trying to sell some manuscripts. His friend has lots of acting connections, he is an actor. I've never met him, he's a drug addict, but his family owns the building they live in. It's right next to this trailer park full of Mexicans. And a friend who protects him lives right around the corner, that's Dave, the Hop Sing Tong. Dave located Andre for me and I have his number. He kind of has Andre watched. He located Andre in 3 minutes.

So, I am OK with that. I just don't want to see him until he gets off of drugs and is more stable, which may be never. I'm just glad I'm not being beaten anymore and I am glad he is OK.

I don't think anyone is doing real great right now.

Update me on the Tanya and Alexandra thing. If you don't want me to tell Mary, let me know. The less you tell Mary is usually the better, she sometimes drives me crazy. She talks constantly. I will tell her you are OK, though.

Does Jimmie still have his job at the bank? I hope so.

I am probably gonna stay in Oregon, I just don't know.

I lost everything.

I love you too. We are all we have left.

Ryan is OK, but Steve and Mary are crazy and Ryan does need some help. He is overly dependent on both of them. He also thinks he's the "Prince of Persia" and is quite the little elitist. Much less Mary's entitlement issues, which are great. Drama, drama, drama.

I miss Sonoma and Andre terribly, my whole life is gone. However, I am Free! It's so strange.

Tell Jimmie I love him too and I cannot wait to be with both of you. Gotta go, minutes are up.

### Author Bio

I'm just a writer who wants to contribute without any accolade or notoriety. Expect contributions from me from time to time.

Peace.

### Chapter Nine

### Road Trip

### by

### Kathryn Eng

Lately, when Stasio was behind the wheel of a car, she was scared. She noticed after his father died, a pent up restlessness; like a caged animal, with wildness in his eyes.

Before Stasio Senior's abrupt departure, his son would occasionally indulge in aggressive passing, whipping into the oncoming lane, flooring the accelerator. But usually only on long trips. Now, he was doing the sort of dare devil passing that left her mouth open, with mostly wordless pleas. The sort of passing where after she would ask what the hurry was, he would look sideways at her and flick some unseen speck off his jacket, then simply look back to the road. She would stare at him for a time, and then glance out the side window and seethe.

With the speedometer approaching one-hundred on a particular day, she started making deals with God and imagining what her daughter would do without her. Her brain would then fill with gray clouds, blood and crunching metal. Something in her was used to being afraid, used to things going very wrong.

When she got out of the car that day she feebly told herself she would never going to get in a car with him again, then remembered her promise to the old patriarch, Stasio's father.

The draw to him was primal. When he entered her life she realized she had been hungry her whole existence.

He was a man who appeared to her in one moment measured and one of the sanest people she had ever met. In the next moment, the reasons and whys he gave were laced with a logic alien to her. _How's that connected to this,_ she would think. Yet, she _had_ chosen him. She knew that. The day they met, she had caught a glimpse of him, across the room. They both had attended the same charity event. He was standing alone, looking into the room, over the top of a cup of Earl Grey tea. It wouldn't be until later she would actually know what kind of tea he was drinking, or that he always ordered his tea with the water "extra hot." For a time, she thought him an absurd man with an odd, foreign formality. That formality eventually grew on her.

One day, she found herself chatting with him by the river, and suddenly she was lost in the green of his eyes. Lost, in the lilt of his Polish accent and gesticulating hand motions. Then lost in the candid confessions of his other life and in his childhood stories of Eastern Europe. Then lost in a tangle of limbs and midnight talks. Then lost altogether.



This day, he was driving her new silver sedan. She was beside him. He scanned the road that stretched into the distance. She stared numb, blank and thoughtless—again.

She hardly saw the long stretch of highway in front of them. Neither had said a word since the near collision a hundred or so miles back. The sleeping six year-old girl in the back seat had remained peacefully dreaming, eyelids fluttering through the whole incident.

They had been stuck behind a lumbering motor home, on a curving stretch of Highway One in Northern California. He had been creeping the car over onto the center line, to see around the meandering behemoth, looking for a way around. He abruptly maneuvered them into the path of an oncoming vehicle. She saw the beady headlights shine white, looking into her. A scream escaped her throat. In the inertia of careening back into the proper lane, her body wrenched towards him, then forward into the dash. A blur of gray, blue and light. She braced herself, imagining the front bumper of their vehicle catching and tearing, the rear bumper of the motor home. She waited, but nothing.

She cringed, pulling her body back into the seat. She jerked back to see what had happened. The other car, a dark blue Honda skidded off the road, thumped along the shoulder, then the car was nearly enveloped in a cloud of dust. No sound but the rushing and pumping in her ears.

Her hands moved up to her face, wiped at the wet and salt—at the stickiness. Her throat hurt. She swallowed a salty, metallic lump.

"Stop! We have to stop," she sputtered, then looked back behind them and saw the man out of his car, walking behind the vehicle, inspecting it, then looking down the highway towards them. Stasio kept driving.

"He's fine. We're fine," His eyes on the road, he waved the air, like a fly was bothering him.

"We have to stop. You nearly caused an accident."

She looked him. Her words barely registered on his face. " _Idiots," he_ was all he muttered, shaking his head.



Face numb, wordless, she had sat for all the miles since. How many times had he made her feel afraid? Sometimes he would admit he had been a little "out there." He sometimes he admitted he had driven dangerously, but justified, saying she "made him crazy"

They had a connection. They did talk in the middle of the night. When she would wake from a dream, he would subtly shift and mumble _Tell me about it, beautiful_. He understood the both the dreamer in her, and the part of her that just knew some things. In his own way, he had given her more than any man ever had.



She glanced back at her daughter, now awake. Katie smiled into the brown eyes that were just like hers. Her hand went to up to cover the twitch in her cheek.

"You're awake." The girl gave her mother a fuzzy smile and stretched in her car seat. Katie extended a juice box to the child.

"Hey Liza girl, here's the grape juice you started earlier." Liza took the offering and simply held it.

"Just set it in the holder, if you want to save it for later."



Katie turned back to face the road and remembered. She remembered a day last spring, when she had come home from work in the early afternoon. She slipped her arms around his neck as he sat designing someone's home remodel at his laptop.

"Come with me," she had said, holding out her hand for his. They drank deeply from the well that afternoon. They had made love and laughed and afterwards, ate fruit in bed.

"Let's have a little late lunch at the Pine Tavern?" She had invited, not wanting the afternoon to end. His face had darkened. His nostrils flared.

"When will it ever be enough for you?" He went on to list all he had just done for her, adding how he had taken time out of his day to please her.

"Eh, no thank you, maybe?"

"You don't get it, do you?" He had stepped into her space, so close her nose nearly touched his bare sternum. Her lips parted and she had looked down, avoiding his eyes. She crossed her arms over her bare breasts. _How had it become this?_

"Let me get this straight," she said, resting her forehead into her fingertips. "You're mad because I asked you out to lunch?"

She shook her head and looked up in his eyes. She held up her palm to stop him.

"Forget it. Don't answer," then she added, "I'm going to shower before I take myself out to lunch and head back to work." She pivoted quickly, entered the bathroom and locked the door. Once behind the door, she had slid to the floor and covered her face. Her brain filled with thick fog.

A harsh knock rapped out a rhythm on the door. She jerked away from it like it had bitten her. She twisted her body, stared through the inanimate white painted thing with accusation. She knew he was on the other side. She rose and pivoted the shower knob and stepped into the warm water. She hummed the French children's song Alouette. She had her own special lyrics for this childhood song. Special little words for times like this. She hummed very loudly, hoping he'd hear her and would know what she was calling him.



She shook off the memory. Her eyes settled on a spot further down the highway. They were approaching a town. She let her eyes glance out towards the ocean, or where she knew the ocean was. _Why would they put industrial buildings right on the coast?_

"What do you think about stopping in Fort Bragg for the night?" She braced herself for his dismissal, knowing he would want to press on, to arrive in San Francisco by dark.

"Okay," he surprised her, "you want to stay in a B and B?"

Maybe he was sorry. Maybe he was beginning to understand.

"And, you will pay because this trip is for your Grandmother's funeral, right?" She turned too quickly to face him, and almost turned away. She looked closer at him. His face seemed puffy, oily. His attention on the road, she regarded him longer. She always thought of him as good looking. His dark hair was straight and fine and framed his large face. Now, she thought, the regal Polish nose seemed—bulbous, the full lips—arrogant, entitled. _You know?_ She thought, _not nice, just isn't all that handsome._ He didn't notice her studying him.

She turned away, nostrils rounded, mouth flattened into a hard line. One huff of a laugh escaped through her nose. She thought about the fact that he nearly killed them a few miles back, and now she was mad because he wasn't going to pay. At least she was no longer numb. At least she was no longer afraid. _Beginning to understand, or sorry,_ weren't places he was going to visit any day soon.

She pointed to a quaint white sign that simply read "Fort Bragg Bed and Breakfast." He swept the wheel and parked beside the building. She felt him looking at her now. She reached for the door handle. His hand went to her arm, his palm hot and moist.

"I want you." His breath smelled of overcooked burger, pickles and French fry grease. Looking away, she slipped from under his touch. She nodded to the innkeeper who had come out to stand on the wooden stoop, flanked with flower boxes.

Without looking at him she held out her hand, waiting for _her_ car keys. His brows shot up. He hesitated, then handed them to her.

"Relax here. I'll eh, take care of it."

Katie got out of the car stiffly. She rubbed her tired back and looked into the fresh-faced smile of the innkeeper. Curly blonde hair escaped a low ponytail at the back of her long neck. A ruffled, flower print apron, tied at the waist, rode over her tight dark blue jeans and purple tank top.

"Jess Morgan," the innkeeper said, extending her hand. Her pale blue eyes regarded Katie openly. Katie smiled, taking the woman's hand.

"Katie Wong."

The two women slipped through the living area of the 1920's era bungalow. The dark wood floors shown in the late afternoon light.

"You added on a sunroom," Katie paused, "to a bungalow?"

"I know. Not exactly period appropriate, but I need the light. These old houses can be so dark."

"No, it's perfect," Katie commented, imagining a nap in the warm, light filled space. "I think I would do the very same thing."

She came into a surprisingly modern kitchen. The credit card machine and office implements were at the end of a steel countertop.

Katie reached in her black backpack styled purse and slipped out a credit card from a bulging wallet. "Just close it out now. We're leaving early." Katie added, as she rummaged through her bag for Chap Stick.

Innkeeper Jess nodded.

"Lawrence, you in there?" she called into the kitchen.

A screen door swung into the room. "Right here," he answered, dusting off his dirt covered leather gloves. He looked like a very big, muscular version of his sister. Clad in khaki shorts and green oxford shirt.

"Show Mr. Wong and his daughter the O'Conner Room."

Katie smiled. "Lit major?"

"Yes. All the rooms are named after famous authors." The innkeeper shook her head like she was remembering something. "My parents said I was nuts, and I would never make a living, but hey, look at me now." She gestured like a stage actress, who had just finished a stellar performance. "Lawrence is still in college," she gestured over her shoulder, and then patted him on the She smiled and headed back out the door. "He's doing the football thing at Humboldt." There was light in her eyes. "A lineman."

Katie slipped the card into its leather slot in her paper laden wallet. She folded the thing closed, unable to snap it; she simply released it to tumble into her pack.

"You must teach?" Katie the tossed the bag over shoulder. _God, she was tired._ She let her eyes rest on the floor. Her brows knit together. She smelled jasmine. It reminded her of something, something long ago. When she glanced up, she was startled by the deep blue eyes steady on her. "Sorry. Long trip." The two regarded each other for a moment, and then Jess smiled.

"I did teach. Just for awhile. Middle school," Jess paused, and then continued, "now my brother and I run the B and B together. My parents left the house to us, a couple of years back.

My dad would roll over in his grave to see that sunroom on the front of his little chunk of history."

"So, he was into maintaining the historical integrity? The house, was it ever on the Historic Register?"

"It was. The house was built by one of the original founders of Fort Bragg." Jess placed the curled credit card receipt and the key to the cottage in a hotel envelop and handed it to Katie.

"You're in that sweet yellow and white number, just across the way." She pointed. "Feel free to come in and enjoy the space. It's perfect in the mid morning this time of year, and the password for the Wi-Fi is in the envelop."

Katie walked back through the living room. She paused and closed her eyes. She made her way outside and down the stairs and stood for awhile on the concrete landing. She watched the procession of the dark man, the little girl and the innkeeper's giant of a brother. She tried to remember his name. _Lawrence. Yes, Lawrence._ She liked Jess and Lawrence. When she was with them, she felt her unease lift just a little.

Katie regarded Stasio. She grimaced. _Why had she said yes to his proposal?_

When they first met, she thought his foreign mannerisms were exotic. His directness excited her. Things had changed since then.

Ah, then there was Miss Liza: her daughter. Katie watched her. The whip-smart child always seemed to find a way to amuse herself. As the little girl pulled her kid-sized sporty blue case, she hopped, like a frog from imaginary lily pad to imaginary lily pad. Katie felt her chest tighten. Her nose burned. She couldn't let her daughter believe this was how it's supposed to be between a man and a woman.

"Don't get wet Mom," she called over her shoulder. Katie hopped off the concrete landing onto one of the imaginary pads, and turned and waved to Jess, who had come out onto the small side porch. Katie looked down at the envelope with the receipt and key. She folded the stiff paper and stuffed it into the front pocket of her handmade sweater.

As she passed the window of the inn's dining room, she glanced at her barely discernible reflection. A young couple with matching white laptops smiled at her through the glass. She nodded to them. _They must see a happy family._ Mr. and Mrs. Wong and daughter...

"Hey Katie, you got a minute." Katie turned to see the innkeeper heading her way with some sort of baked item on a napkin.

"I need your opinion."



That night, Katie lay in bed, next to Stasio. They both looked at up at the ceiling. He was breathing in labored sighs. His arms were crossed. He looked over at her for an explanation. She had none.

She had come back to the cottage without Liza, long after she told him she would return. It was nearly dark when she ambled in. He got hopeful at the thought of them being alone, but she had maneuvered around him and stepped into the shower, after locking the door.

Jess and Lawrence had taken her and Liza to Glass Beach. The four of them had spent many hours collecting various colors of rock-sanded glass. As her hands sifted through pebbles and bits of color, she started to look closely at what she deemed her utterly ridiculous life. Then she found a glass chunk that had a column shape with a slightly bulbous end. "Hey, you guys, check this out." She started to laugh. Then she laughed harder. Then, she dropped to her knees into the sand and held her belly as the surly convulsions washed over her. Then tears wetted her cheeks and liquid flowed from her nose. Lawrence had taken Liza to play in the surf, while Jess held her. Her body shuddered with pent up sobs. She gasped for air and choked out half sentences.

"I'm so stupid. How did I get here? He's a fu... farce...What is Liza going to believe about men... about relationship... love... life." She blurted, cried and waved her hands, cried some more, then after a time laughed again.

Jess put her palm at the side of Katie's head. Her deep blue eyes searched the woman's brown ones. Steady, she focused into one eye, then the other. Pools formed in the rims of sets. "You're beautiful Katie. You're younger than you know." The taller, blonder woman glanced down into the glass and sand, and then raised her gaze to look into the wet-face of the other. "I see new courage when I look at you. I see resolve." She paused then continued. "You know what you need to do, for both you and Liza."



Laying in bed with Stasio, Katie wasn't sure how it had come to be this way, but somehow, Katie had left her caring (of what he thought) on the beach that day. She left the fear of his reaction. She left the tangle of memories that merged this dangerous man with another dangerous man, who had towered over her for most of her childhood. Energy pumped through her body now, awakening dormant places of feminine strength and maternal resolve. She could hear the beat of her heart in her ears. Her breathing was deep and even. Her mind raced with possibility.

"Where's Liza?" He asked. He wasn't curious about where she was when he thought it might mean time alone with her.

"The innkeeper's ten year-old cousin and Liza got on so well at dinner, they wanted to have a sleepover."

His head whipped to face her. "At dinner?" She said nothing. He let out an exaggerated sigh and looked over at her. He sighed again. Looked over again. Nothing. She was in another place. Her brows scrunched and her head moved off the pillow as she made out shadowy Rorschach animals on the ceiling. In the plaster, she saw a motley hyena with a bulbous Polish nose; a lithe gazelle bounding away. He rolled towards her. She felt his eyes on her, but she continued her ceiling watching.

"You could have called."

"I could have."

"I know how you can make this up to me." He ran his hand down her arm. She shuddered. She sat up and turned towards him.

"Make this up to you?" Her mouth open, eyebrows in her hairline. "No. I don't think so." She sat for a moment gathering momentum. "This isn't going to work, Stasio. I'm sorry... No wait, I'm not sorry..." She shook her head, and then looked over at him. "I'm afraid too often. And, I don't trust you." She looked down into the recesses of her mind, a pent up storm gathering velocity. "I appreciate how honest you've been, really. You have told me about who you are and what you have done in your life, but, eh, this," she gestured with her hands, "YOU don't work for me."

"You asked. I told you." He defended. "Nobody is without a past, Katie. I'm simply honest enough to have told you. And you. You were like Gestapo. You assumed..."

"You are right. You did tell me. I was like Gestapo. Someone else will appreciate your honesty."

"No other man is going to love you like I do."

"I'm okay with that." She took a breath, exhaled slowly and turned to face him. "I'm even okay with nobody loving me at all." She paused for a moment, and then continued. "When we were in the car today, I was scared. I thought we were going to die. My face was bloody. Liza could have been hurt, because I decided to date a fu... idiot!" Tears were rolling. Her breaths were labored. "I have been scared many times with you Stasio. Being with you just feels bad. It feels really bad, really often."

"What? I was supposed to stay behind that freaking motor home, going thirty on the highway?" She adjusted the flowered coverlet over her bare legs. She tried to slow her breaths. She noticed the swirling of freehand stitches, outlining the impressionistic pattern. She fingered the paths, knowing she was at a crossroads. She let a big breath empty from her lungs. She let her eyes close. She turned only her head towards him, but he spoke first.

"Yeah? All the way to San Francisco?" His hands gesticulated like some manic conductor.

"You can do whatever you want, Stasio. Drive however you want. Just not with me." She could see his confusion. This wasn't going how it normally went.

"Come on, baby. I'll be better. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Hmmm...let me think." She sat looking ahead. "Nah. I think, not. This doesn't work on so many levels."

"Really? That's not what you said the other night."

She knew he was grasping now. Her response to him was a card he always played. "That's not enough Stasio. Not even close. Sex isn't some panacea, that's going to make it okay, or fix what's terribly... irrevocably... ridiculously wrong between us." She was the one heavy sighing now. There was the familiar pain in her chest, in a high rib on the right side. The place that reminded her to be careful, to not let things get out of hand, like some vestigial alarm button evolved in childhood, to ensure survival. "Okay here it is: You never really wanted just me. Even after you put this ring on my hand, you never really stopped looking."

"I did. I was never unfaithful to you! You have no proof!"

"You know it's true, Stasio. We talked about the e-mails. And, that aside, I don't feel loved. Not on any level. And, when I'm afraid, you say I'm being unreasonable. I want someone who cares when I'm afraid."

"You were unreasonable."

"Okay, so I'm unreasonable," her palms flopped outward. She then looked at the diamond engagement ring. She grasped both sides and pulled. The thing pulled at her flesh and wouldn't budge over the knuckle. She stuck her finger in her mouth. She looked over at him. His face reddened. She quickly looked away and pulled hard at the white gold band and brilliant diamond. With a final yank, her elbow hit the headboard. She winced, but her finger was free. She extended the saliva laden circle and stone to him. He sneered at it, nose scrunched in disgust.

"It's just spit Stasio. You've held worse," she challenged. "I won't offer it again. Take it or not. I don't care."

"So what now?"

"Liza and I are headed to my great grandma's funeral—without you."

"What? You are going to leave me here?"

"This is important to me. This is a major milestone in my family. My Grandmother was..." She breathed for a moment and decided not to go on in that vein. "I don't want you there."

He turned towards her. "You bitch. You would leave me here?" He repeated, hands waving, searching for words.

She turned her eyes away from him and let them rest, just out of focus, through the sliding glass door. She noticed green beans, fragrant herbs and root vegetables grew in the space that resided in the space between the cottage and the main house. She had picked peppermint for the tea she had shared with Jess and Lawrence after they had returned from the beach. She turned her gaze to him. "Yes. I would leave you here."

He tossed the covers aside, swung his long legs over the side of the bed and stood naked beside the bed. With fist and index poised, he was ready to start his verbal barrage.

_Ring._ Katie flinched. She sat open-mouthed for a moment, and then threw the covers back. She stretched to pick up the hotel style phone from its cradle.

"Hello?" Katie knew who it was. She listened and nodded for a moment, then answered, "I'm not sure actually." She moved the phone away from her face and gave him a questioning look. "It's the front desk, the innkeeper. Are we okay Stasio?" He shot her a dangerous look. His eyes hard. His jaw clenched.

"Nope, Jess. Definitely not okay. Lawrence still around?" She covered the receiver.

"Look, idiot," she shook the receiver at him. "I'm not traveling another mile with you." She looked down, wide awake, and heart pounding. "You're just icky. Really icky. I don't like being with you. You're not fun. You're not nice. It's over."

A hard, urgent knock tapped on the door. "It's Lawrence. You guys okay in there?"

Katie looked at the door. "He's here Jess. Got to go." She turned and looked at Stasio. The surprise etched into his regal bone structure. She started for the door.

"Crap. I'll go. I can't believe this." He picked up his jeans from the bedside table and pulled them on.

She pulled the door open.

"Hi," she said simply. The young man, hair scruffy from sleep, scratched his head and looked down in her eyes, waiting. Katie was glad for the young man's 6'4" powerfully built frame. She looked back at Stasio, slender and just under six feet. He had his back to them, zipping his blue jeans. "I think he's just about to head out." A quivering smile broke her lips. Her hand flew to cover it. Lawrence looked up at the doorframe and shook his head. "I'll wait outside." He slid down on the bench outside the door and closed his eyes, arms crossed over his chest.

She swung the door slowly, leaving it ajar.

Stasio made his way, stiff armed and grim faced, to the closet. He ripped the plastic dry cleaning bag from a hanger and picked up the neatly folded dirty items, and stuffed them in. He circled over to the bathroom vanity and swept all the items from the counter into his toiletries' bag. His face gray with rage, large nose puffing.

He looked dangerous, but she didn't care. "You have my moisturizer, toothbrush, cleanser and Liza's toothbrush." He looked down at the cell phone she held, then slowly up her body, lingering at her breasts before meeting her eyes. He stepped closer to her. So close, she could smell the limey-spiciness of his deodorant. The smell was thick and settled at the back of her tongue. She flinched, pondered, looking down for a moment. Then she met his eyes.

"Really?" She flipped open her cell phone. He lunged and knocked the cell from her hand. She screamed.

"I sorry," he said quickly, startled by his own actions. Then his face screwed up in anger again, and he groped for words. "You bitch," He turned, taking a straight path to the bathroom, arms swinging, and nose puffing like a steam engine.

"Watch out for..." but she was too late. His body went rigid, arms flying up, and feet sliding. He crashed down hard, tailbone to tile, and slid into the tub at the end of the bathroom. "...for Liza's tutu... the wet floor"

"Ahhhhhrrrggg," he screamed, fists pounding on the floor. He twisted around to look at her. He glared into her eyes. "My god damn back!" he accused. Then his fist pounding came in unison, two fists pumping down, again and again. The guttural sounds that rasped from his throat sounded more like the yowls of a cat, than a man. He held his head with one hand and palmed his lower back with the other. "Not again. Look what you made me do, you..."

She stood, mouth agape, staring and wordless. Then she heard a creak of the opening door. "Come in," she yelled over her shoulder.

He struggled, shifting in pain. His voice hoarse: "I loved you. You loved me," words tore from his throat. He turned to face her again. His eyes pleaded. He slowly rolled over on to all fours, and then to his knees. He trudged to her, "C'mon Katie, you know we're good together."

She backed slowly away from him, her eyes round. She notices the bright red on his knee and hand. His eyes were bloodshot. His hands shook. "Maybe, we once were, good sometimes, maybe," she whispered, not seeing, mouthing words, "but this doesn't feel how I need love to feel. I want more than this." She studied the groveling man. She looked into the pleading, watery eyes. "I'm tired of being afraid, Stasio."

"When I'm deep inside you..." he started. She almost laughed, then felt the lump and the burn, and looked at the ceiling trying not to cry. He went on. He feebly searched for words. "Gswno..." he said in Polish, and then looked down, confused. Then he found a few words and stood. "I bring you alive, more alive than you have ever been." His accent was thicker now. She looked down at his hands that were clenched at the end of limp arms.

"Maybe. But, that's me, alive, more alive than I've ever been. Not you." Pity rose in her throat, yellow and bitter. He had alluded to things that had happened to him on the streets of Warsaw. "I'm sorry for whatever happened to you, Stasio. I just need more for Liza and me." She stood, feeling weak and suddenly more exhausted than she could remember. "Please just go. I can't help you, with what happened..."

His body went rigid. He dropped the bag he was holding and closed the distance between them.

"I trusted you," he lunged. She covered her face, bracing for what she knew would come.

"Lawrence!" she screamed through her hands.

"Dude, now!" Lawrence now stood behind Stasio. The blonde man was half a head taller, and half again as wide, than the slender dark haired man.

"Dude, really." Lawrence reached for Stasio's shoulder, "Time for you to go." Stasio swung away, and looked up into the face of the younger man. A sneer flattened the full lips. The light eyes flashed. Lawrence stepped back. His lips parted.

"Please Stasio. your visa." He stiffened, stopped for a moment. She had retrieved her phone and was fingering "911" while continuing to look at the two men.

"I'll go. Don't call policia." He threw his bag over his shoulder and scooped the plastic one off the floor. His eyes assessed Lawrence, then Katie. He shook his head, reason seeming to return. "I'm sorry. You deserve better than me." He put down plastic bag and reached out a shaking hand. _He wants to shake my hand?_ She looked at quivering appendage. She looked at the pathetic man. Her head pivoted side to side.

"No." She whispered. She saw pain in the light blue green eyes, pain no amount of love could heal. "Good-bye Stasio."

"Okay," he breathed. He picked up the bag, turned and walked into the night.

Katie didn't realize she had been holding her breath, until she gasped for air, still looking at the open door. Lawrence turned and nodded. She began to shake, and he quickly covered the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her.

"It's going to be okay," he assured her.

"Hmm, I don't think I quite knew how that would go," she looked down, brows furrowed, "I've never done anything like that."

"Come into the main house. It won't quiet for much longer. The kitchen staff will arrive and start cooking soon, but that eh... well, he looks like a wild card. He'll probably settle down and move on, but you just want to play it safe."

"I'm so sorry," she said. She pulled her hoodie over her head and began to shiver. She clenched her jaw to stop the chattering of her teeth.

"Hey, it's life. You made a mistake. We all do, Katie." Lawrence turned and looked out the door. He watched Stasio walk out into the night, and pause under the street light. The two faced each other for a time. Lawrence bowed his head slowly, never losing eye contact.

"He's still there. Just moving on," he said to Katie, his focus still out in the street.

"I could have done that better. It got a little crazy. I've never challenged him like that before." Her hand shook as she moved a lock of hair from her face. "Something in me just couldn't lie there anymore. I was beginning to hate me. And somehow, it all began to look different, clearer, since the beach today. Or wow, I guess that was yesterday..."

"Yeah, my sister's said something like that before. She's said 'You know you have got to leave when you can't stand the woman in the mirror' or something like that." He patted her back. Katie agreed. Lawrence turned off the lights and started out the door, then headed down the path to the main house. Katie walked through the door after him and closed it behind them. She then, ambled along behind, moving from stone to stone. She turned and glanced back to the little yellow cottage. The porch light dimly lit the square landing, where Lawrence had sat on the concrete bench.

She turned back to the stone trail. She carefully placed her foot on the next stone, smooth and light gray, it accepted her shaking weight.

She pondered the main house, which sat solid in front of them. The recessed lights, shining down, lit the big sitting porch in golden light, like a gentle beacon. White wicker furniture, with blue and white cushions adorned the gray painted porch.

"Mama," Katie heard a little voice call, then the creaking swing of the screen door. Jess and Liza emerged onto the stoop. Liza let go of Jess' hand and she ran to her mother. The little child was grinning, looking up into her mother's eyes. "We're making blueberry pancakes Mom, come see." Katie let Liza take her hand and let herself be led into the warm kitchen. On entering, her nose filled with the sweet smell of grilling cakes and fragrant fruit.

Katie pulled her daughter to her and hugged her from behind, then whispered in her ear. "Perfect, sweet girl. This is just what I wanted. How did you know?"

Liza turned to her mother and smiled. "I just knew."

##

##

## Author Bio

I'm a zesty, curious, green food loving poet/artist. I'm also a lifelong learner currently a Liberal Studies major with a business minor. Feeding my body gorgeous, living food has nothing to do with "shoulds" as far as I'm concerned. For me, it has everything to do with feeling fabulous, happy and utterly inspired. My vibrant green path is a spiritual walk in the soft grass; a totally-in-the-moment awareness; and a fearless, smiling, connected way of loving.

Read more about Kathryn at her blog Love and Lettuce:

<http://loveandlettuce.com/>

My intention with Love and Lettuce is to create a resource of alternative health information in the form of poetic vignettes, and down to earth stories. I will also include some of my unique, healthy recipes that I've developed along my passionate journey to feel fabulous. Many are woven with a contemplative kind of spirituality, others – a hedonistic devouring of the delicious. Cheers! Be so well! Love, Kathryn

### Chapter Ten

### Jason Allen Rigney

### by

### Jeremy Pierce

He sat in a seat at the far end of the bar and watched her attentively. The subtle clues in her movements and the vivid signs on her face spoke volumes about who she was. Jason made mental notes about everything he saw. Every facial expression, what she drank and what kind of men she talked to were carefully noted. He watched her for hours as she moved about the bar with an inhuman grace.

The shadows from the dim lighting danced playfully across her face and breasts. She wore a skinny black dress that hugged the curves of her body and heels that put her at eye level with most men. He knew that she was the one and that she would be the first. She eventually found a companion that she talked to in great length. He was a handsome man with short hair and chiseled features. She leaned into her mate and whispered something into his ear. Then, the two locked eyes, paid for their drinks and walked out the front door. Jason waited three minutes then slapped twenty-five dollars on the table to pay for his drinks and followed them outside.

He stepped outside and loosened a couple buttons on his denim jacket. He took in the night air and pulled out a flask. He cleared his mind and took a drink. Jason concentrated and honed his hearing. A short distance to the right he heard the soft patter of footsteps and some giggling. He followed the noise.

His hearing brought him to the opening of a narrow alleyway. He shifted his flask to his right hand. In the shadow he could make out her form entangled in ecstasy with the man she just picked up. Jason could feel a weight begin to push down on his shoulders, and his heart felt like it was held in place by a vice. He stood there and watched the couple. Their passion swept them away for a brief time and the handsome man went to his knees in front of the woman. He stayed in this position for a few seconds and slumped over onto his side. The man settled into a spot where is face fell out of the shadows and into a shaft of light. The handsome man's face was lifeless and void of color. Jason fidgeted with an item he held in his left hand.

The woman turned around, wiping her chin with a cloth she pulled from her purse. "Who are you what are you doing here?"

Jason began to close the distance between him and her. "I know what you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean?"

"I've been following you, and I'm here to stop you."

"Wouldn't you rather spend the night with me instead?" she asked as she opened the front of her dress. Her milky white breasts stood out as beacons of sexuality.

"Your seduction won't work on me. You are a perversion of the lord and you will be dealt with" he added. He threw his right hand forward and splashed the contents of his flask her breasts. Her body burned and sizzled.

She screamed out in pain with an inhuman voice and cursed him in a language that he didn't understand. Her true nature was showing, a visage as beautiful and alluring as before, but frightening and intimidating as a creature from forgotten folklore. She hissed and two razor sharp fangs jutted downward from her cusped. She lunged at him like a wild animal about to rip his throat out.

Jason did not waver. He put out his left hand and pressed a crucifix against her forehead. She seemed almost paralyzed as he dropped his flask and put a wafer into her mouth. He held the crucifix firmly against her flesh and started the chant he memorized, "Immaculate Lordly Mother of God, cleanse the venomous serpent, death, and the vampire and Satan and all evil force from thy servant of god, now, today, and always." Ending there, he reached behind his back and pulled out a wooden stake he had hidden inside his jacket. "I don't pity you, but I do recognize compassion for the poor women you have corrupted and everyone you have murdered."

He plunged the stake into the vampire's chest and pierced her heart. Her demonic screaming came to cease and her body crumbled to dust. In just a few short seconds, a wind arose within the narrow alley and swept the vampire's ashes into the sky. The tightness around Jason's heart came to an end, but the pressure was still pushing down on him. He felt as though his job wasn't yet finished, and he still felt vulnerable.

Since the day of the accident, Jason has been without a car. He had to walk home and it was a white-knuckled stroll. On his walk, he was filled with fear and adrenaline. There was a level of excitement he had never before felt. It was excitement mixed with guilt. He knew that he had done the lord's work on this night, but he was fearful that someone had seen him. What if the cops came looking for him? What if someone saw him and thought that _he_ killed the man? His mind dwelt on this for the entirety of the walk home. If he acted sooner, he might have been able to save the man's life. Was it fright that kept him from acting fast enough? Then a fearful thought came arose from the back of his mind. This will certainly get easier. And, if it does, will he go mad? He felt like he needed to take a shower.

It was one o'clock in the morning when he finally made it home. His legs were tired, and he tossed his keys into a wooden bowl he kept next to the door. The pressure had now loosened from his shoulders. He shambled towards the bathroom. This was the house that he grew up in. It was the house that his parents left to him when they passed on. As he stumbled through the hallway, he ran his hand along the wall and discovered a memory from his past. He stopped when he felt the notches that his parents made at the end of the hallway. These scratches were relics from his childhood. They were the marks representing each growth spurt that he and his sister had as children. This section of the wall was one of the few things he had left to remember his family. He finally felt safe. He would call his sister in the morning.

It was two days after his first kill. He felt more comfortable about the events of that night, but they still lingered in his mind. His seemingly dark fate was secreted away in a place which he could never share with anyone. The thought of this information getting out to anyone frightened him.

He had been invited to a co-worker's house for a social get-together. This was something that Nathan did once every two months for the people he worked with. Jason and Nathan both worked as machinists at Barton Welding and Machining. Jason had been working there for three years. He was hired after his parents passed away. He considered Nathan a friend, but didn't spend much time with him outside of work aside from these get-togethers. He felt comfortable and safe amid his co-workers and friends. For several hours he forgot about vampires and murder. He sat on one of the plastic lawn chairs with a beer in his hands and watched the children playing in the yard.

Nathan came and sat next to him. "So, how much is that hospital bill going to be?"

"Pretty harsh," Jason answered. "But, the insurance is going to cover most of it."

"Let me get this right. You died in the hospital and they revived you?"

"Yeah."

"What was that like? Do you remember it?"

"No," Jason responded. "There really isn't much to say about it. Last thing I remember was the other car slamming into mine. They said he was going pretty fast and that I was in a coma for about a day. Luckily there wasn't any brain damage and I recovered pretty well. I did have some strange dreams for a while after that though."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Just nightmares."

"You gonna get a new car?"

"No, I think I'll just keep riding the bike for bit. It's kinda helping me get back in shape."

"Good idea." Nathan paused and changed the conversation. "Can you believe these people who call themselves the 'ninety-nine percent?' They're just standing out there on Main Street with picket signs. They think they can change the country."

"Yeah, I saw that on the news," he retorted. "I think its bullshit too."

Their conversation went on and on. He enjoyed the time he spent with his friends. They ate and drank, and when the day grew into the afternoon the men played football with the older boys. No one was hurt.

Jason spent the following three days tracking down his next vampire. His first clue came in the daily newspaper. There was a picture that stood out on the front page of the paper. The vampire was the president of a local bank. A bank that Jason used no less. The picture featured the president presenting a check to a woman who won the local lottery. What really caught Jason's attention, was that the bank president was out conducting business during daylight hours. This news came as a complete surprise. It sickened Jason to no end knowing that he trusted this blood sucking abomination with his money. It also ailed him further to think that these fiends could walk around during the day.

The picture featured a man of heavy stature. He had short black hair that was combed back and a rather thick older looking mustache. Jason thought that he looked like someone who might have lived during the old west.

In those three days he tracked the vampire to its place of residents. A rather large house in the upscale neighborhood where the upper class lived. Jason scaled the tall iron fence and stalked around the house and mapped in his mind the surroundings. He made sure to do this during business hours and found a few bushes in which to hide before the bank would close. He noted that the vampire seemed to live alone. There was no sign of a family, a wife or children to get the way of his mission.

It was now seven o'clock and the sun had set. From his position, he could see a light come on in one of the rooms. The vampire was lurching about in the house. Jason watched as the abomination moved from room to room. When the activity seemed to settle down, Jason made his move.

He made sure to keep a low profile as he hurried across the yard towards a sliding glass door. Upon trying the door, he wasn't surprised to find it was locked. He would have to find another way in. He moved counter clockwise around the house, making sure not to go near the street. He kept his back to the house and looked through every window he found. He couldn't find any sign of the vampire's movements, but he knew he would have to hurry before it left the house.

Jason wasn't watching where he stepped and almost fell into a recess set in the ground against the house. This was the window into a basement and he pressed on it. It opened. The space was just big enough that he could fit his shoulders through. He slinked in and hit the ground with a thump, but he hoped not audible enough to alert the vampire of his presence. The room was dark; he fumbled around in his pocket for a lighter. He held the lighter up and found a beaded cord attached to a light.

When he lit the room, he found the vampire's coffin. His heart seemed to skip a beat, and he felt the weight on his shoulders once more. He took another drink from his flask and readied the stake in his right hand. He walked around to the front of the coffin and as he bent over to fling it open, he felt the vice tighten on his heart once again.

With lightning quick speed, he cast the lid open. It was empty. Empty as far as a person or vampire, but there were several handfuls of dirt laden about the casket. He breathed a sigh of relief and emptied some of his flask into the dirt. He then took out a spare silver crucifix and laid it in the coffin. After he finished his cleansing he was sure that the vampire would have no place to rest, and continued up the stairs that lead out of the basement.

He came to the door at the top of the stairs and pressed his ear against it. After hearing no movement or signs of activity he eased the knob. The door open smoothly and Jason slipped into the house.

He looked to either side and found himself in a hallway. To the left was a kitchen area, so he went right. Jason tip toed down the hallway. It ended at a pair of wooden doors. He thought it might have been a den or workspace. Through the space under the door, he could tell that a light was on and there was movement inside.

Jason opened the door. Inside, the bank president was feasting on a young woman strewn across a large wooden desk. Jason interrupted his meal, and the vampire was not pleased.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" The vampire's eyes moved downward and saw that Jason was holding a stake in his right hand. "I haven't seen a hunter in a long time. And I'm sure you won't be the last."

Jason anticipated the vampire's move and threw his left hand forward with the flask. The vampire stepped to the side and Jason made another attempt. This time he swept his hand in a sideways motion hoping to create an arc with the holy water that the vampire couldn't dodge. To no avail, the creature was too fast. In the blink of an eye the bank president was gone. Jason turned around and the vampire caught him with backhand that sent him reeling across the room. Jason lost control of the stake and flask, they dropped to the floor.

"Perhaps I should make an experiment out of you." The vampire loomed over Jason and bared his fangs. The hunter was caught in the vampire's gaze. As the vampire drew closer, he found himself to be paralyzed. He snatched up Jason's arm, and sank his fangs into his wrist.

The vampire began to feed on Jason and a burning hit his throat with a fiery intensity. The beast reeled back from Jason and clutched at his own neck. The hunter threw a swift kick into the vampire's chest and pushed the beast back as he primed the crucifix in his left hand. Jason got to his feet and retrieved the hawthorn stake from the floor. Before the vampire could recover, the hunter was on him. Jason pressed the cross to the vampire's forehead.

"Immaculate Lordly Mother of God, cleanse the venomous serpent, death, and the vampire and Satan and all evil force from thy servant of god, now, today, and always!" The vampire began to scream, and the hunter thrust the stake through its chest. The unholy perversion crumbled into a pile of dust. Then, a gust of wind threw open a window and the dust was whisked away into night sky. Jason looked at the woman lying on the desk. He could tell that she was still breathing. He was relieved that he was able to save this one. The vice had finally freed his heart.

Before he could approach her, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whirled around and lunged his stake forward. He caught a police officer in the chest, but this man did not crumble into dust. Jason looked in astonishment as blood began to spurt up from the officer's mouth. At that moment Jason realized that he must have tripped a silent alarm. The officer fell to his knees and slumped over. Behind him, another officer stood with a weapon drawn and pointed at the hunter. This officer pulled the trigger and put two rounds into Jason's chest.

### Author Bio

Jeremy Pierce's Jason Allen Rigney series is part of a science fiction paranormal series developed in a COCC creative writing class headed by Mike Lankford.

### Chapter Eleven

### Jason Allen Rigney II

### by

### Jeremy Pierce

Jason sat up in the darkness and gazed into the bright tunnel of light rounding about him. He rose to his feet and took a step forward. A sharp ringing pierced his senses and stopped him in his place. Like a stranger in a foreign land, he was unfamiliar with his surroundings.

Do not wander into the light my son.

"Who are you?" Jason asked. "Where am I?"

I am your guardian and your purpose is not yet fulfilled.

"I don't understand." Jason looked around but could not find the voice speaking to him. It seemed to resonate around him and within him. This place he was in seemed immaterial. He wasn't even sure if it existed at all. The light in front of him felt warm and inviting. From the other direction he sensed danger and fear.

A gift is given unto you. Take this knowledge into your charge and do your father's bidding. His word is law, and his will absolute.

"Am I dead? I don't know what you're talking about."

All of your questions shall be answered soon enough my son. Walk away from the light and return to the dark. Trust in the visions to come. They will show you the way.

Jason turned his back to the light and began to walk forward. The darkness enveloped his being and he felt taunted. He could to hear faint whispers of scorn and ridicule. These voices laughed and tease him as he continued onward. He grew increasingly more insecure with each step. He tried not to think about this and attempted to push it out of his mind as the whispering developed. Jason felt like he was standing on the cusp of madness. He wanted to scream out and curse the voice which spoke to him not but moments ago.

It wasn't long till the light behind him was no longer there. He felt lost as though he had never known truth or love. He thrust out his hand to find something tangible. He could not see as he fumbled and groped around in the dark. Before long he couldn't even see his own hands stretched out in front of him.

However, he was not deaf or blind. Desperation and determination gave way to physical sensation. He felt something in his hand and grabbed tight. It was the only sense he had left and tried to bring this object closer. It felt soft, yet strong. His form began to shake and his senses began to return. Sound rose like a cacophony and the brilliance of light dazzled his wits. The sensations came to a dull and he could see his sister sitting next to his hospital bed with tears in her eyes. His hand was nestled in hers.

"Sammy?"

He sat in a seat at the far end of the bar and watched her attentively. The subtle clues in her movements and the vivid signs on her face spoke volumes about who she was. Jason made mental notes about everything he saw. Every facial expression, what she drank and what kind of men she talked to were carefully noted. He watched her for hours as she moved about the bar with a sense of grace rarely seen. There was a contrast about her pale skin and dark hair that he found to be fascinating. Jason would be swooning for her too if he wasn't here for other matters.

The shadows from the dim lighting danced playfully across her face and breasts. She wore a skinny black dress that hugged the curves of her body and heels that put her at eye level with most men. He knew that she was the one, and that she would be the first. She eventually found a companion that she talked to in great length. He was a handsome man with short hair and chiseled features. She leaned into her mate and whispered something into his ear. Then, the two locked eyes, paid for their drinks and walked out the front door. Jason waited three minutes, then slapped twenty-five dollars on the table to pay for his drinks and followed them outside.

He stepped outside and loosened a couple buttons on his denim jacket. He took in the night air and pulled out a flask. He cleared his mind and took a drink. Jason concentrated and honed his hearing. A short distance to the right he heard the soft patter of footsteps and some giggling. He followed the noise.

His hearing brought him to the opening of a narrow alleyway. He shifted his flask to his right hand. In the shadow he could make out her form entangled in ecstasy with the man she just picked up. Jason could feel a weight begin to push down on his shoulders, and his heart felt like it was held in place by a vice. He stood there and watched the couple. Their passion swept them away for a brief time and the handsome man went to his knees in front of the woman. He stayed in this position for a few seconds and slumped over onto his side. The man settled into a spot where is face fell out of the shadows and into a shaft of light. The handsome man's face was lifeless and void of color. Jason fidgeted with an item he held in his left hand.

The woman spun around, wiping her chin with a cloth she pulled from her purse. "Who are you, what are you doing here?"

Jason began to close the distance between him and her. "I know what you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean?"

"I've been following you, and I'm here to stop you."

"Wouldn't you rather spend the night with me instead?" she asked as she opened the front of her dress. Her milky white breasts stood out as beacons of sexuality.

"Your seduction won't work on me. You are a perversion of the Lord and you will be dealt with" he added. He threw his right hand forward and splashed the contents of his flask towards her breasts. Her body burned and sizzled.

She screamed out in pain with an inhuman voice and cursed him in a language that he didn't understand. Her true nature was showing, a visage as beautiful and alluring as before, but frightening and intimidating as a creature from forgotten folklore. She hissed and two razor sharp fangs jutted downward from her cusped. She lunged at him like a wild animal about to rip his throat out.

Jason did not waver. He shot his left hand forward and pressed a crucifix against her forehead. She was paralyzed and helpless as he dropped his flask and put a wafer into her mouth. He held the crucifix firmly against her flesh and started the chant he memorized, "Immaculate Lordly Mother of God, cleanse the venomous serpent, death, and the vampire and Satan and all evil force from thy servant of god, now, today, and always." Ending there, he reached behind his back and pulled out a wooden stake he had hidden inside his jacket. "I don't pity you, but I do recognize compassion for the poor women you have corrupted and everyone you have murdered."

He plunged the stake into the vampire's chest and pierced her heart. Her demonic screaming came to cease and her body crumbled to dust. In just a few short seconds, a wind arose within the narrow alley and swept the vampire's ashes into the sky. The tightness around Jason's heart came to an end, but the pressure was still pushing down on him. He felt as though his job wasn't yet finished, and he still felt vulnerable.

Realization set it as he saw the body of the handsome man lying on the ground. Jason wasn't sure if he should even touch the corpse. He ran his hand through his short curly hair as he pondered the situation. The distinctive sound of laughing undulated through the crisp cool air, and Jason dove for cover behind a dumpster. He peeked through the space between the trash bin and the brick wall and saw two women walking past. They seemed oblivious to the happenings and his nerves began to calm, just a little.

I'm a murder! He thought to himself. I didn't kill this man, but I just killed someone that used to be a human being! Dear God! The morbidity of the body in front of him hounded his conscience. He wiped his hand downward across his face and tried to compose himself. What do I do now? He pulled his nerves together and decided not to touch the body and left the alleyway without calling a cab. He would have to walk home. Calling for a ride home might put a witness who can recognize his face near the scene of the murder.

Since the day of the accident, Jason has been without a car. He had to walk home and it was a white-knuckled stroll. On his walk, he was filled with fear and adrenaline. There was a level of excitement he had never before felt. It was excitement mixed with guilt. He knew that he had done the Lord's work on this night, but he was fearful that someone had seen him. What if the cops came looking for him? What if someone saw him and thought that he killed the man? His mind dwelt on this for the entirety of the walk home. If he acted sooner, he might have been able to save the man's life. Was it fright that kept him from acting fast enough? Then a fearful thought came arose from the back of his mind. This will certainly get easier. And, if it does, will he go mad? He felt like he needed to take a shower.

It was one o'clock in the morning when he finally made it home. His legs were tired, and he tossed his keys into a wooden bowl he kept next to the door. The pressure had now loosened from his shoulders. He shambled towards the bathroom. This was the house that he grew up in. It was the house that his parents left to him when they passed on. As he stumbled through the hallway, he ran his hand along the wall and discovered a memory from his past. He stopped when he felt the notches that his parents made at the end of the hallway. These scratches were relics from his childhood. They were the marks representing each growth spurt that he and his sister had as children. This section of the wall was one of the few things he had left to remember his family. He finally felt safe He would call his sister in the morning.

It was two days after his first kill He felt more comfortable about the events of that night, but they still lingered in his mind. His seemingly dark fate was secreted away in a place which he could never share with anyone. The thought of this information getting out to anyone frightened him.

He had been invited to a co-worker's house for a social get together. This was something that Nathan did once every two months for the people he worked with. Jason and Nathan both worked as machinists at Barton Welding and Machining. Jason had been working there for three years. He was hired after his parents passed away. He considered Nathan a friend, but didn't spend much time with him outside of work aside from these get togethers. He felt comfortable and safe amid his co-workers and friends. For several hours he forgot about vampires and murder. He sat on one of the plastic lawn chairs with a beer in his hands and watched the children playing in the yard.

Nathan came and sat next to him. "So, how much is that hospital bill going to be?"

"Pretty harsh," Jason answered. "But, the insurance is going to cover most of it."

"Let me get this right. You died in the hospital and they revived you?"

"Yeah."

"What was that like? Do you remember it?"

"No," Jason responded. "There really isn't much to say about it. Last thing I remember was the other car slamming into mine. They said he was going pretty fast and that I was in a coma for about a day. Luckily there wasn't any brain damage and I recovered pretty well. I did have some strange dreams for a while after that though."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Just nightmares."

"You gonna get a new car?"

"No, I think I'll just keep riding the bike for bit. It's kinda helping me get back in shape."

"Good idea." Nathan paused and changed the conversation. "Can you believe these people who're standin' out on the street with those picket signs? They think they can get through to those fat-cats in Washington."

"Yeah, I saw that on the news," he retorted. "They call themselves the 'Occupiers.' They think they represent people like you and me. I think they're crazy and are making us look like crybabies. We'll see how this whole thing pans out."

Their conversation went on and on. He enjoyed the time he spent with his friends. They ate and drank, and when the day grew into the afternoon the men played football with the older boys. No one was hurt.

Jason spent the following three days tracking down his next vampire. His first clue came in the daily newspaper. There was a picture that stood out on the front page of the paper. The vampire was the president of a local bank. This was a business that Jason used no less. The picture featured the president presenting a check to a woman who won the local lottery. What really caught Jason's attention, was that the bank president was out conducting business during daylight hours. This news came as a complete surprise. It sickened Jason to no end knowing that he trusted this blood sucking abomination with his money. It also ailed him further to think that these fiends could walk around during the day.

The picture featured a man of heavy stature. He had short black hair that was combed back and a rather thick older looking mustache. His grooming choices seemed rather antiquarian, and Jason thought that he looked like someone who should have lived in old west.

In those three days he tracked the vampire to its place of residence with the help of his sister's car. A rather large house in the upscale neighborhood where the upper class lived. Jason scaled the tall iron fence and stalked around the house and mapped in his mind the surroundings. He made sure to do this during business hours and found a few bushes in which to hide before the bank would close. He noted that the vampire seemed to live alone, as there was no sign of a family, a wife or children to get in the way of his mission.

It was now seven o'clock and the sun had set. From his position, he could see a light come on in one of the rooms. The vampire was lurching about in the house. Jason watched as the abomination moved from room to room. When the activity seemed to settle down, Jason made his move.

He made sure to keep a low profile as he hurried across the yard towards a sliding glass door. Upon trying the door, he wasn't surprised to find it was locked. He would have to find another way in. He moved counter clockwise around the house, making sure not to go near the street. He kept his back to the house and looked through every window he found. He couldn't find any sign of the vampire's movements, but he knew he would have to hurry before it left the house.

Jason wasn't watching where he stepped and almost fell into a recess set in the ground against the house. This was the window into a basement and he pressed on it. It opened. The opening was just big enough that he could fit his shoulders through. He slinked in and hit the ground with a thump, but he hoped not audible enough to alert the vampire of his presence. The room was dark, so he fumbled around in his pocket for a lighter. He held the lighter up and found a beaded cord attached to a light.

When he lit the room, he found the vampire's coffin. His heart skipped a beat, and he felt the weight on his shoulders once more. He took another drink from his flask and readied the stake in his right hand. He walked around to the front of the coffin and as he bent over to fling it open, he felt the vice tighten on his heart once again.

With lightning quick speed, he cast the lid open. It was empty. Empty as far as a person or vampire, but there were several handfuls of dirt laden about the casket. He breathed a sigh of relief and emptied some of his flask into the dirt. He then took out a spare silver crucifix and laid it in the coffin. After he finished his cleansing, and was sure that the vampire would have no place to rest, he continued up the stairs that lead out of the basement.

He came to the door at the top of the stairs and pressed his ear against it. After hearing no movement or signs of activity he eased the knob. The door opened smoothly and Jason slipped into the house.

He looked to either side and found himself in a hallway. To the left was a kitchen area, so he went right. Jason tip toed down the hallway. It ended at a pair of wooden doors. He thought it might have been a den or workspace. Through the space under the door, he could tell that a light was on and there was movement inside.

Jason opened the door. Inside, the bank president was feasting on a young woman strewn across a large wooden desk. Jason interrupted his meal, and the vampire was not pleased.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" The vampire's eyes moved downward and saw that Jason was holding a stake in his right hand. "I haven't seen a hunter in a long time. And I'm sure you won't be the last."

Jason anticipated the vampire's move and threw his left hand forward with the flask. The vampire stepped to the side and Jason made another attempt. This time he swept his hand in a sideways motion hoping to create an arc with the holy water that the vampire couldn't dodge. To no avail, the creature was too fast. In the blink of an eye the bank president was gone. Jason turned around and the vampire caught him with backhand that sent him reeling across the room. Jason lost control of the stake and flask, they dropped to the floor.

"Perhaps I should make an experiment out of you." The vampire loomed over Jason and bared his fangs. The hunter was caught in the vampire's gaze. As the vampire drew closer, he found himself to be paralyzed. He snatched up Jason's arm, and sank his fangs into his wrist.

The vampire began to feed on Jason and a burning sensation hit his throat with a fiery intensity. The beast reeled back from Jason and clutched at his own throat. The hunter threw a swift kick into the vampire's chest and pushed the beast back as he primed the crucifix in his left hand. Jason got to his feet and retrieved the hawthorn stake from the floor. Before the vampire could recover, the hunter was on him. Jason pressed the cross to the vampire's forehead.

"Immaculate Lordly Mother of God, cleanse the venomous serpent, death, and the vampire and Satan and all evil force from thy servant of god, now, today, and always!" The vampire began to scream, and the hunter thrust the stake through its chest. The unholy perversion crumbled into a pile of dust. Then, a gust of wind threw open a window and the dust was whisked away into night sky. The vice had finally freed his heart.

He looked across the room to the woman lying on the desk. She appeared unconscious. Jason approached. He positioned his head on her chest and could see the rise and fall of her chest. He knew she was still alive and was glad that he was able to save this one. He straightened up and looked down at her innocent face. He thought it would be best not to touch and wake her. He didn't want anyone that could identify his face as a trespasser.

A thought resounded in his mind like an ancient gong. Cameras! He began to search the house looking for any sign of security devices. He looked up in the corners in rooms and hallways but there wasn't any sign of a camera. His nerves began to calm. He was glad that he hadn't been recorded in the house. His next thought was to check the outside perimeter of the house for exterior cameras.

There was a loud knock on the door. Jason froze in his tracks. The knock pounded one more time. He took a couple steps backward and peered down a hallway. He could see the front door and a security panel on the wall next to it with a blinking red light. At this point, he knew he tripped a silent alarm, and heard the knocking again. Jason made a dash for the glass door at the rear of the house. His heart was pounding. He unlatched the glass door and entered a dead sprint across the yard to the fence he had scaled earlier in the evening. Just before he got to the large iron fence he heard someone shout at him, followed by the sweeping motion of a flashlight. Beyond his understanding he found the strength and fortitude to navigate over the fence without pause. The person yelled once more, but Jason did not stop. He ran for miles. He didn't stop until safety was certain. And he would continue until everyone was safe.
Chapter Twelve

Scott's Story

By

Scott Schultz

There was an eerie silence to the forest. A squirrel was curious about the silence and started to investigate. A distant snap brought it back to its senses as it retreated to a large oak tree. Safety was within its paws when it was shot to the tree and moved no more.

"Good shot" said a new voice in the distance. The intruder was wearing a worn purple suit covered in a black traveler's cloak his ordinary brown eyes studying his surroundings. When he deemed it safe from further life added

"This is far enough." Another man removed the arrow from his prey and started to clean it off.

"You better have a damn good reason for meeting me Vain," replied the second man.

Vain reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment and handed it to his equal. "I've found another one of our targets brother," explained Vain. A smile appeared on the killer's face as he exclaimed "Daniel and Vain are back in business!"

Vain couldn't believe how gleeful his brother was about this! Daniel was such a simple man who enjoyed simple things. Taking another's life was among those pleasures. "This isn't like before Daniel, we're simply preventing dark times from returning," he said.

"Oh that's where you're wrong Brother," smiled Daniel.

Vain didn't return his smile and stared into his gray eyes and waited for him to explain further.

Daniel caught on and lost his smile. He continued "It's simple, our services wouldn't be requested if dark times had not returned". He glanced at Vain before reading the note. A smile announced that he had finished reading his sentencing, death. "Where would I hope to find the Smiths?" asked Daniel.

Vain slowly raised his finger to his left and casually replied "Up the road a little bit. It seems that our friends do enjoy their privacy."

Daniel's facial expression became serious as he said, "More proof that they have something to hide and earn death." He led the way and Vain followed. Both brothers walked down the unforgiving path that would be the end of someone and the start of something.

A thick folder was lying on a messy desk in a plain room. The door was jiggled and then opened by a small and thin man. He removed his hat and cloak and put them on the coat rack near the door. "Unbelievable," uttered the man as he slumped into his chair. A name plate announced that the desk belonged to Michael Harding. The folder was opened to reveal a list of different reports.

Shifting through them he wasn't impressed with his findings. Finally, he picked one out and began to read it. "Mrs. Timmerman was taking her daily walk when she noticed two dark figures heading toward the smith's house. Thinking nothing of it she continued her walk. Thirty minutes later she recalled seeing smoke from the direction of her neighbors and she rushed to investigate. To her horror she found a house engulfed in flames. Shocked and in disbelief she stood and watched it burn until an extraordinary cry brought her back. Realizing what she heard Mrs. Timmerman sprinted into the house and found the Smiths newest edition. After acquiring the young child she lunged out of the window onto the lawn.

He had enough and couldn't handle finishing his read. The wheels in his head kept turning and turning with the same two thoughts. Who and why? Mary and Joseph Smith were your ordinary law abiding citizens. They supported their government and completed duties and tasks set before them. He was certain for one thing though. This was certainly the work of those who opposed the government. Still why would someone kill such a plain and innocent family?

The answer would have to wait as his beeper went off; reminding him that he had a meeting to catch. He organized the report and put it into his desk and he removed himself from his chair and pushed it in. His civil duties always got into the way of his work. The election of the water party was to arrive soon and he must make his endorsement decisions by tomorrow. After locking his door he glided down the hall toward the conference room. It's been years since the water party had control over the country. The power struggle was mainly over the fire party and earth party. It made sense though. Fire and Earth made up most of the military force. Water was used mainly has a source of medicine. He wasn't quite sure on the purpose of the Wind Party besides for providing efficient energy.

Michael's thoughts were forced aside as he was greeted by his governess "Molly what an honor to see you again."

"Yes, yes of course" spat the Governess. She was wearing a simple blue dress and hair was up in a tight bun. Her eyes were a bluish hue of gray. "Have you decided who is getting your support?"She never was the one for pointless talk."

"I don't announce it until tomorrow" I state.

"I am aware of that Mr. Harding."

"I suppose you had another reason to ask me then?"

She curls her lip and says "Just curious as who might replace me is all". Catching Michael's attention she continues "I am stepping down as Governess of the Water Party today." Silence was offered up as she decided her next thoughts. "I am needed elsewhere and I'll be more useful in a less political atmosphere."

"My lady." He is unable to find his next words and offers a stiff nod.

She returns the nod and leads him into the conference room.

Faces glanced as they enter the room. "Mr. Harding your arrival is most opportune. You see we were simply discussing our next political move and your influence is needed. For years you have put together the best political campaigns that anyone has ever seen. We need that skill for our next move as a party."

Michael looked around the room for the source of the voice and discovered Senator Judas stepping forward.

"You see for too long has our voice been ignored and it's time that we make it heard."

"I'm a little confused right now" Michael replied.

Judas smiled and continued, "I believe you read the report that we sent you early this morning."

"As a matter of fact I did Senator"

"Excellent then you know the angle we want to use with our ads."

"You want me to include information about a gruesome murder to aid us?"

"Precisely! It was the result of a failed policy from The Fire Party that must be corrected"

"You can't be serious!?!"

"I'm afraid that I am. You see when we send that message to the general public it will cause an uproar which will lead to fear and panic. That is when we make our move." Judas' eyes studied him as he waited for a reaction.

"Senator you make it sound as if you're planning to forcibly take power which is ludicrous and outrageous"

In response Judas licked his lips and walked closer to Michael. "THAT is exactly what I'm implying. Everyone else has discussed the matter and agrees that we plan to over throw our current President out of power. President Ives' polices and leadership is mediocre at best. It's time that he steps down" a cruel smile formed on his lips. "Wither by force or any other means possible."

Michael was dumbfounded but what he was hearing. Over throw President Ives? It was impossible! His popularity with Pacifica was unusually high and who could blame the subjects!? War was avoided at all costs, poverty was at an all-time low, and crime rates were almost non-existent. Anyone with a brain would know that and write off the ad. It was pointless and a waste of everyone's time.

Judas clasped his hand on Michael's shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "We have your support, right?"

Unsure what to say he glanced at Molly for help. All she offered was a slight nod and it was clear to him. Everyone in that room had already decided the fate of Pacifica and now waited to see his reaction. He didn't have to think long as his voice made the decision for him. "No"

The grip hardened as Judas raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want to decline my offer?"

It's too late to turn back now Michael thought to himself. "You heard what I said. I'm not going to be a part of this."

"That was the wrong answer. Such a shame for a potential talent like you to silenced but we can't risk word getting out"

Michael was in pretty deep shit and he knew it.

### Author Bio

Scott Burch is currently attending COCC for a degree in communications. Scott is also President of COCC's Theater Troupe club where he recently just directed his first play. In addition to attending college, Scott is active in Bend's local 2nd street theater productions. Scott has been in several productions including Assasins, Evil Dead The Musical, Richard lll and Working. Scott loves acting, singing, and all things related to the arts.

### Chapter Thirteen

### There and Back Again

### by

### Larry Van Zandt

Fred Baggins again darted a glance at the right handlebar-mounted rear-view mirror, and began to panic.

_They're still following me_.

It was at this point that Fred paused in his feeling of dread, to curse his choice in transportation one more time, wondering what idiot thought it would be a great idea to use a cranky old Vespa scooter as daily transportation. Anyone who has driven a car anytime during the last century knows that the Italians couldn't build a dependable machine to save their lives, as proven by hundreds, if not thousands of Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, and Fiat owners and the legions of horror stories emanating from their near-legendary inability to travel five miles without something breaking, catching on fire, or rusting in half.

And for the eighteenth time during the short chase that Fred Baggins now found himself involved in, he neglected to answer himself as to who that 'idiot' was that suggested he buy a Vespa, which silently spoke volumes as to name the identity of said idiot.

Nine black Mini-Coopers loomed large in both of Fred's mirrors, and the lead Mini was close enough for him to clearly make out who was driving it: The Man in the Origami Hat.

They must want the blueprints. That's the only reason why they're following me.

Fred extricated a shaky hand from the left handlebar grip of the Vespa, to reach into his front shirt pocket, and verify that the blueprints were still tucked away inside, also protected by his special-edition, "Lord of the Rings/Frodo Baggins Elven Cloak," which in the book series, the cloak is supposed to make whoever is wearing this near-magical outerwear disappear into his surroundings. However, in this case, all it did it in current-day, rather-sunlit Florida was billow in the wind behind him, making him stick out like a sore thumb to those in close pursuit of their quarry. Perhaps if Fred could find a woodland area to disappear into...however, given that he was still well within the city limits of Daytona Beach, Florida, the chance of a conveniently-placed woodland popping up somewhere in this urban setting was about as likely as a sudden blizzard appearing out of the skies (especially considering that Florida is considered to be something akin to God's Left Sweaty Armpit), or the elderly drivers that plague South Florida miraculously developing driving abilities rivaling those found in a common, household-variety, blind five-year-old.

Given that Fred had an attention span short enough to be considered non-existent by most medical professionals, and that the scenery was rocketing by at almost walking speed, of course his mind began to wander to other things as he attempted to outdistance his foes, namely how he just happened to have the last name of "Baggins", and that he now found himself being chased by nine men in black Mini Coopers...just like in the book, AND _the_ movie!

Well, maybe not _exactly_ like the movie, because he was riding a piece-of-crap Vespa, and the guys chasing him were driving what appeared to be base-model Mini's (and not the more-expensive, turbocharged "S" model, but hey, evil minions have to save money just like everyone else, right?), but they were indeed modern metaphorical representations of the black horses that the bad guys rode during the famous chase scenes in Fellowship of the Ring, while his Vespa was obviously not a very accurate modern-day version of the white elf horse that easily outran the nine servants of Lord Sauron.

If anything, the scooter metaphorically resembled more an old, arthritic mule which had slowed down to the point where it needed to be put down by an annoyed, but understanding cowboy.

And his mind wandered on, as the mile(s) passed slowly by, taking Fred back a few years to when he still lived with his parents, who were so into the Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien in the late 1960's, that they legally changed their last name to "Baggins", and attempted to name their lone child "Frodo", only to be rebuffed by the mightily-annoyed State of Florida department of vital statistics employee who, upon leaving for work that morning, having already had a long fight with his wife over her gambling and cocaine habits as he attempting to extricate himself from his wife's evil clutches (he was really pissed about the gambling), was in no mood for any funny business.

Unfortunately for the Baggins couple, the application for certificate of live birth with one "Baggins, Frodo" hastily scrawled on the very top happened to cross this very same angry man's desk, was quickly grouped into the mental file, "Business, Funny", and was summarily rejected and denied by said man, adding the final nail to the parents' baby naming coffin, with "...with extreme prejudice" added in the blank space for notes at the bottom of the form, which is always _reserved for state office workers only_.

"Baggins, Frederick" was penciled in above "Frodo", the red, puff-faced office worker threatened to call the police if Fred's parents had even the slightest idea of objecting to the impromptu name change, and the newly minted parents were the ultimate picture of dejection as they slowly shuffled out of the office, their hopes and dreams of their first-born being the eldest child in a long line of modern-day, correctly-named 'Bagginses' being trampled like wheelchair-bound participants of Spain's annual "Running of the Idiots."

"Frederick", due to parents throughout time immemorial never seeming to have the intestinal fortitude to waste on the clearly-Herculean effort of pronouncing their children's first names in full, became "Fred", and Fred eventually became a grown-up, somehow managing to fall through the pins of a galactic-sized game of real-life Plinko, random chance bouncing him back and forth, eventually placing him on the path which led to today's bizarre sequence of events, and the wild chase that Fred Baggins was currently spacing off as his attention wandered elsewhere.

The Vespa striking a large pothole frighteningly snapped his attention back to the present, and also violently yanked his left hand away from fondling the mysterious blueprints and back to the handlebars. Since potholes always happen in pairs, Fred immediately spotted the next one, darting first to the left, away from the second cavernous, sinkhole-in-waiting which was also conveniently placed directly in his path, just like the first one, he was then forced to heave the overburdened scooter back to the right, as the large landscaping truck with "Guido's Lawn Service" gaudily painted on the side, going 20 mph over the limit, shot by on his right side as Fred evaded the pothole, with the nine Mini Coopers still hot on his tail.

It should point out that Fred doesn't have the slightest idea as to how to actually _ride_ the Vespa. It was cheap, supposedly got excellent fuel mileage, has a three-speed manual transmission, however, it's been in second gear the entire time he's owned it, meaning it's almost impossible to accelerate from a dead stop, but he also can't keep up with traffic going anything faster than 30 mph. Therefore, pretty much anything else on two, three, four, or even 18 wheels (or even on two legs) goes at least 20 mph faster than Fred on city streets.

He knows that there is a gearshift lever _somewhere_ on the Vespa, however, given that he can barely just manage to get it started in the morning, he thought it best not to tempt fate, and start pushing other buttons or pulling levers. In addition to the Vespa being stuck in second, the right-turn blinker has also been on during his entire term of ownership, indicative of Fred's complete cluelessness about how to operate the Italian Menace.

Also slowing Fred's forward progress was the two-hundred or so pounds of luggage strapped to the front and rear of the Vespa scooter. Once he discovered that The Man in the Origami hat had discovered his home on Hillshire street (once again, fate plays a cruel joke on the hero, it was the only place he could find to rent), his thoughts went immediately not to his own safety, but to the wellbeing of his expansive Lord of the Rings memorabilia collection, an expensive, and girlfriend-alienating habit inherited from his parents.

Among the items stowed away in the giant suitcases were three pairs of 'Hobbit feet', reportedly worn by actor Sean Astin (he played 'Samwise', apparently), or at least the online auction that Fred bought them from stated thus vociferously. He also had enough replica swords secreted into the luggage, that should he have wanted to, he possessed enough weaponry to gain immediate access to any of the area's department of motor vehicles counterpersons, and be granted the first spot in line.

I'm almost there.

Fred was attempting to flee to his uncle's house. Originally, the idea was to sneak over to his uncle's home as unobtrusively as possible (or as unobtrusive as a man with an Elven cloak and two-hundred pounds of luggage strapped to the front and rear of a smoke-spewing, violently-wandering Vespa could be), and this stratagem was further cemented by the sage advice granted to him by his 'Lord of the Rings' special-edition Magic Eight Ball, which unknown to Fred had been dropped 316 times by its previous owner, and was now broken, always revealing the words, "Yes, Definitely!" whenever someone attempted to use it. And of course, the mystic, rotund, and composite advice-giver revealed the same, fateful message when he wisely asked it for advice yet again.

As he slipped into yet another musing session, Fred began to wonder why this magic eight ball was always so supportive of his ideas, however, a large expansion joint almost pulled the Vespa's handlebars out of his hands for a second time, forever delegating this observance to the "Forgotten until next time" mental file.

As suggested by Shakespeare, in that the "best-laid plans of kings often go awry", Fred's plan to run over to his uncle's home was shot to hell the moment he saw the black Mini Coopers parked at the end of his street.

What to do...what to do...???

Fred thought about the layout of the neighborhood for a moment, and then recalled that there was a closed grade school two streets over, and that he could sneak his Vespa and his precious blueprint cargo past the barricade at the end of the street which led to the playground, but the black Mini Coopers, as small as they were, would have difficulty passing even their diminutive bulk through the steel and concrete trap.

I could ride through the school yard, and come out on the other side. Uncle's house is only a block over from there.

He put his plan into action, darting through a gas station parking lot, attempting to shake the predators that clung to him like lampreys to a whale, or how welfare children are glued to really large women. The Mini Coopers were forced to remain on the street, however, due to the Vespa being stuck in second, the Nine simply sped up and made the right turn normally, so when Fred turned back onto the street, he was still directly in front of those who gave chase.

Fred then darted left on the second street over, and rode as fast as his overburdened and wildly-buzzing Vespa would travel. The end of the street rapidly approached, and to his dismay, he realized that several abandoned/stolen shopping carts blocked the barricade to the school playground.

Oh, crap. This isn't good, this is definitely not good.

Behind him, the Nine, seeing that Fred had nowhere to go, slowed to a crawl, and fanned out behind him, idling their cars along the street. The haggard young man locked up the pathetic, Italian-engineered brakes, and slid to a halt within a foot of the first abandoned shopping cart.

As the Minis inched along, creeping towards him, Fred chanced a glance rearward, and clearly saw that the Man in the Origami Hat was still the lead car, and his lead pursuer now had a sadistic smile on his face. Fred, now thoroughly panicked, jumped off of his bike, hurriedly put down the center stand, struggled to get the overweight Vespa onto it, and then began shoving shopping carts out of the way, to uncover the gap in the barricade that beckoned like, well, a doorway to freedom, sort of like Han Solo in the movie "Star Wars", when Chewbacca and Solo dove through the rapidly-closing blast doors, shooting the wall panel as they ran.

Fred pauses for only the most minute of moments, once again easily distracted from his task, unsure as to why a Star Wars reference is popping into his head right now, because he is mentally picturing himself being in a story with a heavy Lord of the Rings theme, and on top of that, the barricade rails weren't rapidly closing like the blast door inside the Death Star. The only reason he could fathom for thinking of Star Wars might have been the shopping carts that Fred was tangling with were rolling back towards him, like wire-basket 'blast doors', after he shoved them out of the way, the street was lower in the middle, so water runoff could hit a drain in the curb...and carts would roll back to the center of the street, aided by gravity.

Wait, aren't I supposed to be fleeing from someone?

With the last cart cleared, Fred, facing his pursuers, could see that the Mini Coopers were now parked about twenty feet away from his Vespa, and that the driver's door of the lead car was slowly opening, as the Man in the Origami Hat began to extricate himself from the vehicle. Fred launched himself toward the Vespa, jumped into the saddle, shoved the bike off of the stand, and at the same time, in a feat of manual dexterity rivaling any number of Parkinson's-riddled senior citizens or an equal amount of drunken stroke victims, he clumsily managed to somehow peg the throttle, start the bike, launch the bike forward without stalling it, kicked his feet backward to help himself get moving, slowly shot through the gap in the barricade, and rode out onto the overgrown grass of the school playground...which was rather wet from the rain that had just fallen two hours ago.

Fred never looked back to see if the wicked men were following him, lest he turn into a pillar of salt, or worse, a biblical-sized pallet of Lord of the Rings memorabilia. He kept the throttle pinned, and although the front wheel washed out several times, he somehow managed to keep the Vespa upright in the slippery grass.

He finally cleared the playground, got through the open front gate, shot through the parking lot ("goddamned speed bumps!") and went through an alley that led directly towards the street on which his uncle lived. As he turned onto the dead-end avenue, and what might be his sanctuary (sort of like the mystic Home of Elrond Half-Elven, except his uncle's house is quite a bit more...uh...crappy and decrepit looking), his heart dropped when he glanced, by instinct, first into the right-hand mirror, and saw nothing but Mini Cooper reflected in his gaze, slowly inching towards him. Switching his view to the left-side mirror, he confirmed that there were indeed several cars behind him, completely consuming his rearward view, as if some imaginary black hole, made up entirely of black Mini Coopers had opened up behind him, pulling in everything, including the sunlight.

Oh no. I've led them to my uncle's house, and this time...there's no escape.

Fred continued accelerating towards his uncle's home, but then nailed the brakes upon arriving at the far side of the small bridge that crossed a tiny creek next to his uncle's home, forgetting to pull in the clutch, stalling the bike in the process, sealing his fate, because it took a month of Sunday comic book conventions to get it started again. He then finally looked behind him, sensing his doom approaching.

How does this end?

The Man in the Origami Hat, leading the pack of nine cars that were approaching from the rear of Fred's beleaguered Vespa, pulled within five feet of the scooter, applied his brakes, shut the engine off, applied the emergency brake, carefully removed his seatbelt (Safety First!), checked his 'bad guy' makeup in the vanity mirror embedded in the sunvisor, and upon checking his teeth, discovered a bit of salad or something left over for lunch, so he paused a moment to worry the offending bit loose with a fingernail, chewed the extracted food particle, checked his teeth again, found nothing, put the mirror up, accidentally nailed his nose with the sunvisor, muttered a curse word, composed himself, took a deep breath, counted to ten, and then finally exited the vehicle.

The remaining eight Minis bunched in behind the ominous one, shut off their engines, but remained in their vehicles, while the teeth-cleaning drama unfolded in their leader's automobile.

The Man in the Origami Hat closed the car door of his personal conveyance, and walked around the nose of the Mini Cooper, stopping when he was even with the license plate bracket, and turned to face Fred. He then folded his arms behind his back, looked directly at Fred, smiled in a manner devoid of any humor, and began speaking to his imperiled prey.

"Hello, Fred. You have somesing zat belongs to me. I vould like to have it returned, so I can leave zis rather boorish and oonsightly neighborhood, and return to my home."

Fred was a bit startled, initially because the Man in the Origami Hat disturbingly spoke with an incredibly thick German accent, and secondly, the said blueprints which Fred's nemesis were seeking was written entirely in German. He knew how to speak this often-difficult language, thus he immediately understood what ramifications the blueprints held for the auto racing world...and humanity in general.

He then replied in an explosive manner, which offered a release to the pent-up terror that had had been building since the pursuit began.

"Do you have any idea what these car plans will do to the sport of NASCAR, the biggest auto racing series in the world?!?"

The Man in the Origami Hat replied in a smooth, confident, yet polite manner.

"Zese plans vere not meant for mortal, or at least non-MBA-degree-possessing eyes. Ve vill take over ze world, vun racing series at a time. Now, Fred Baggins (and vhat a dumkopf name zat iss), you shall give me zat which I am seeking", and with that statement, the smile disappeared from the nameless terror facing Fred, to be replaced by an evil stare of menace, the man's gray eyes boring a hole into Fred's soul with the intensity of his gaze.

It was at this time that Fred noticed a rather large and incredibly decrepit tenement on wheels to his left, in the form of a multi-colored, thirty-five-foot-in-length Winnebago motorhome parked against the curb, in all of its rather-non-sparkling, faded-paint glory, looking more like a an old, abandoned building in a fairly-recent issue of National Geographic than a mechanized home away from home.

And as comprehension of who this vehicle belonged to began to manifest its gravity, another figure from the depths of his memory banks jumped from around the other side of the abandoned-looking recreational vehicle, and jumped over to stand directly next to the driver's side of the rear bumper. Fred's uncle had arrived to save the day...or at least Fred thought so.

This uncle also shared Fred's devotion to Lord of the Rings lore, but given his advancing age, the only character he had anything in common with was...

"Uncle Gandalf!" cried Fred, relieved to see a potential protector.

Uncle 'Gandalf' stood six-foot-four, had a scraggly, gray-shot beard that would impress any homeless man, wore an eye patch (which never seemed to be covering the same eye) was dressed in tattered, gray robes, and was currently in possession of a rather large wood staff, holding it in both of his impressively-gnarled hands. He spoke, and his voice was synonymous with thunder...or at least someone shaking a large wood saw blade back and forth that was making metal-warbling 'thunder' sounds...and the focus of his vocal rage was directed, uh, directly at the Man in the Origami Hat.

"You...shall...not...pass!" screamed Uncle Gandalf, in almost a primeval fury.

The Man in the Origami Hat must have recognized the new addition to the party, because his face immediately took on the countenance of a snarl, and he hissed out the German-accented word, "Snarl!" to really emphasize the point that he was indeed snarling at the real-life, South Florida-dwelling version of Gandalf, the White Trash Wizard.

Uncle Gandalf then whirled around, swinging his iron-tipped wood staff in a wide, fast arc, connecting with a large, black plastic cap that covered a large, black plastic tube that ran underneath almost the entire length of the square-tube rear bumper of the Winnebago. Having connected with the cap, a large cracking sound could be heard, and then Fred was grabbed and pulled away from the edge of the bridge by his uncle.

The Man in the Origami Hat froze for a moment...to his detriment, as his inaction would cost him dearly. The black plastic cap exploded from the tube, and shot out horizontally, skipping off of the bridge railing, and sailing far away, to land in the creek hundreds of feet downstream. This small explosion was followed by a torrent of old, heart-of-darkness brown, raw sewage erupting from the sewer pipe of the Winnebago, reminiscent of the Hoover Dam spillway opening, and millions of gallons of unspeakable terror launching from the mouth, sweeping anything in its path away downstream, and this is precisely what happened to the Man in the Origami Hat, his car, and the rest of the Nine Ringwraith metaphors: The monumental and epic discharge of raw, pressurized sewage, the human waste collection from a thousand road trips, and ten thousand Indian Cuisine restaurants simply lifted Fred's pursuers from the bridge, and tossed all nine Mini Coopers into the small creek next to Uncle Gandalf's house, where they bobbed up and down in the now-incredibly-brown morass that was once the remains of the contents of Gandalf's Winnebago septic tank.

Fred caught his mouth hanging open as he stared at the nine formerly-black Mini Coopers floating away downstream, and then felt someone staring at him to his left. He snapped his head around to meet his savior, but whatever joy he just felt from being saved from his pursuers, nausea, caused by the unholy stench of the sticky goo that had exploded from the depths of the Winnebago, and shock from seeing nine cars just be casually tossed by the Strong Arm of God's Septic Tank were quickly displaced by a sense of shame, receptive to the look of abject anger that now crossed his uncle's face.

"You idiot!" his uncle bellowed, "Now they know where I live!!!"

Fred began an apology, but his uncle quickly cut him off.

"Shut up. Push your scooter into the driveway, and come into my home, immediately!"

Fred did as ordered, and then darted into the house, where his uncle was standing. He began to speak, but once again, was curtly stopped by Uncle Gandalf.

"You took the plans, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"Shut up! I didn't ask you to speak!"

"But you just asked..."

"Shut up! We don't have time to chit-chat idly, or reminisce about old times, and eventually get around to why you decided to show Management of NASCAR where I freaking live. Those blueprints you stole from the corporate technical center are of something that looks like a racecar, but all of the words are in German?"

"Yes, but..."

"Did I give you any indication that I wanted to hear you talk? Shut up!!! Those plans are for an all-new race car that NASCAR, the people that you work for, they're going to unleash this new car on the world, sort of an auto racing version of the 'ten plagues of Egypt'! Every team will have to use it, the fans will be forced to like it, it will be too expensive to use, will be the ugliest car on the track, and will make NASCAR and the rest of auto racing a complete and total joke! Is any of this getting through???"

"Well, no, but...but wait, what about the firstborn of NASCAR?", replied Fred, sounding incredibly frustrated and confused, desperately attempting to access his mental hard drive for the location of the logic strain which would allow him to see how to tie the secret plans together with a biblical plague, and failing to do so.

"I don't recall asking you to answer me! You have one thing to do, and that's final! Take these plans to the summer home of Brian "Sauron" France, CEO of NASCAR, and toss them in his swimming pool heater!"

"Uh, why...uh..." stammered Fred, now completely lost, stumbling around for comprehension, like the captain of the Exxon Valdez did upon discovering he had just somehow managed to not miss the entire coastline of Alaska, and caused a bit of an oil leak.

"Shut up!!! The short version is this: Those car blueprints were found at a German secret weapons test lab at the close of World War II, and they're of a suicide attack vehicle which failed miserably, simply because it was....stupid-looking. The Americans saw one coming once, and simply laughed it away...and the Germans thought it was pretty stupid as well. Brian "Sauron" France, CEO/Evil Leader of NASCAR, found these plans in a German exercise book called "Dancing with Strudel!", but couldn't read German, and also couldn't read the technical notes at the bottom of the page which declared the car a complete failure...but he saw the blueprints of what appeared to be a race car...so he built it, and now everyone in NASCAR is going to use it: He calls it the 'Car of Tomorrow', and it will be the downfall of NASCAR...and eventually, the rest of the world will follow!!!"

Realization slowly dawned upon Fred.

Yep. I didn't see it until now, but my uncle is bat-shit crazy.

"Okay, uncle Gandalf", Fred said, resignedly..."what does this have to do with a...pool heater?

"You don't have time to talk!! Go to his house, and destroy the One Plan! You will be tempted to use the One Plan, and it will consume you!! The plans are made out of a mysterious Egyptian papyrus, and only the perfect temperature and PH level of Lord Sauron France's swimming pool heater tank can destroy the blueprints!!"

It was at this time that the front door of uncle Gandalf's house flew open, and a man wearing a resplendent black suit of armor came striding in. The wearer of the armor must not don it very often, because the weight of the large, plumed helmet and faceguard pulled his head off-balance, and to the right as he walked.

Uncle Gandalf cried out, "Lord Sauron France!"

"Yes, old foe, it is I, CEO and Lord of NASCAR, Brian "Sauron France! You will hand me the One Blueprint to Rule Them All, Fred Baggins!" declared Lord Sauron France in a half-nerd, half-rather-declaratory manner.

"Don't do it!" yelled Gandalf, "Lord Sauron France will bring about one thousand years of Auto-Racing darkness!!"

It was about this time that Fred had finally had enough. He hated his job at the NASCAR tech center anyway, they were all pretty much concerned about nothing but corporate-sounding terms such as 'Official Sponsor Of...', and 'Corporate Synergy', and to be honest, NASCAR racing was going downhill anyway, simply because most of the tracks were the most boring design imaginable, and nobody wanted to watch, their attention diverted by new technology such as 'Smart phones', and 'Dancing with the Stars'.

Fred began this day thinking he might save the world. At the end of it, however, he discovered that he had undergone a personal transformation from Hero, protector of the auto-racing innocent, to Advocator of the Apathetic, determined to make the world a better place...by letting someone else do the heavy lifting. And as Gandalf began whacking away at Lord Sauron France, flailing away uselessly at his nemesis's metal armor, understanding finally took root in Fred's consciousness, and he reached into his front shirt pocket, pulled out the blueprints, tossed them onto the dining room table, where Lord Sauron France and Gandalf's attention was suddenly directed, and they both dove around Fred for the ancient text, as he left their bizarre battle behind...and rode the Vespa home, finally discovering how to perform the complex mental ballet dance of being able to use the shifter and the clutch at the same time, but still not figuring out how to switch the turn-signal of.

### Author's Bio

A newborn infant discovered in the flotsam and jetsam of a bombed-out aircraft hangar during the American Civil War, little is known about this prolific comedy author other than he has few hobbies, and can be counted upon to comment on anything and everything...even if nobody really wanted him to. Larry is a genius inventor (created the italicized period '.', and helped develop the artificial appendix) enjoys walks on the beach, and pushing wheelchair-bound elderly persons down flights of stairs.

### Chapter Fourteen

### The Replacements

### by

### Larry Van Zandt

In a curious, morbid manner, given the inordinate amount of time he spent on the road, Walt always wondered what it would be like to be involved in a head-on car crash.

He sat on what remained of the Mazda Miata driver's seat, with his left arm caught in the wrinkled sheet metal of what used to be the driver's side door, and left foot jammed into a small crevice created by the front left tire and wheel being shifted backwards two feet by the huge, bloated GMC Yukon (at least he thought it was a Yukon, there's a "GMC" badge at the base of the windshield) that had just drilled him, and that same tire and wheel collapsed into the footwell under the steering column, trapping his left foot, and possibly severing it at the ankle.

It was also at this time that his thoughts began drifting away from the mechanical savagery that had just occurred, like a lone, lazy cloud inexorably inching across the otherwise-empty, noontime desert sky to either dissipate or vanish over the horizon, and Walt began to ask himself that same question he always did lately, but in this instance, he now had some fairly definitive answers.

"Would it hurt?"

Hell, yes, it hurts. Oh my God, it hurts.

"Would I die?"

I don't know. I can't catch my breath. I can't move my left foot. I think my nose is broken from the airbag. I can't feel my left arm...and I can't feel my left foot, either, now that I think about it. I'm also starting to feel like I'm going to pass out. Is this what happens to other people when they die in a car crash? I just thought the lights would go out. I know that if I ever get out of here, I'm gonna kill the bitch driving the GMC, and then go after her goddamned family!

His thoughts immediately shifted to a friend of his who was killed instantly a couple of years ago when a Blazer ( _how convenient, he got killed by a stupid bitch driving another General Motors product)_ with a lift kit and huge, pointless tires, piloted by some other stupid bitch ( _I wonder if these two stupid bitches were related..?_ ) who wasn't paying attention to the road, suddenly swerved left-of-center on the two-lane highway they were both traveling on, like some incredibly boring version of 'two ships pass by in the night', but in this case, the Blazer met the friend's car, head-on, and used the front of the Subaru Outback as a ramp, the front differential housing crushing Todd's head between the roof and the head rest.

For some reason, Walt was initially angry that the driver of the Blazer took the easy way out, after it was discovered that Todd's killer had somehow hung herself in her jail cell, however, that feeling of hopeful retribution suddenly went away, and in its place, a growing paranoia begin settling in the back of his mind, taking into account he spent so much time on the road, especially of the two-lane, unprotected-center variety, the same type of highway that had killed Todd.

For some inexplicable reason, whether it be due to the strange, euphoric giddiness caused by the pain of many broken bones that was attempting to pull him into the deep, dark, crawlspace of unconsciousness, or a nervous reaction to having just been involved in a bad hit, Walt began mentally replaying the moments up to the crash, both reliving them in his mind, and verbally, talking to no one but himself as he attempted to determine what had happened.

"The trucks really need a highway of their own", Walt repeated to himself and nobody in particular, remembering how the oncoming Fed-Ex truck had had a tandem-trailer setup behind it, and the tail end of the second trailer slightly crossing left-of-center over the double-yellow no-passing zone one usually finds in a corner, and then casually wondering, yet again, as he bled to death ( _wait, am I?)_ in the Miata, asking himself why he talked out loud while he was driving alone. He did this often, as he always traveled with the radio off, preferring rather to talk to himself about ideas, politics, technology, whatever worked to help pass the miles.

Oh yeah, I forgot, the Mazda has a shitty radio in it, and the wind noise with the top up or down drowns it out, so there's no point in buying a decent CD player anyway.

At the point where the collision was being replayed, he screamed out. "AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!"

With that exclamation, sensation had returned to Walt's left arm, and it wasn't a good one. He turned his head to the left, to view what remained of his arm that was wadded up in the door, and noticed that his hand was touching his elbow, which was impossible, unless it had been snapped in the middle, and folded over like a book.

Oh God this hurts! I can't move my fingers! Can't get out! Is that gas I smell? Oh, fuck!

Walt attempted to pull his left arm out of the door, however, the slightest twitch caused pain spikes so horrific, he thought he was going to faint.

It was at this point when the driver of the Yukon must have come to, as she began a panicked-stricken, hysterical screaming.

I think it's a she. Fucking screams like a woman, anyway.

He shouted at the other driver, "Shut the fuck up! I hope it fucking hurts, you stupid fucking bitch!!! You had better fucking pray to God that I don't get out of this car alive, because if I do, you're FUCKING DEAD!!! AGGGGHHHH!!!"

Walt screamed, as he twisted some to better yell at the other driver, and almost fainted from his wasted effort and the blinding pain it caused.

Shouldn't have yelled, shouldn't have yelled, shouldn't have yelled, that really hurt, shouldn't have yelled...what, is she sobbing now? Wait, it stopped, oh shit, is she dead?

"Hello, there! Is everything okay?"

Startled, Walt snapped his head around violently to see who was there, because he hadn't heard anyone else pull up, and immediately wished that he hadn't turned his head, quickly returning his dazed cranium back to the original forward position, after wrenching both his pretzeled arm and his origamied left foot and ankle.

Shit, I hate this car. I should have bought a goddamned Lincoln, as least I wouldn't have this fucking steering wheel jammed up my nose.

It was a bit difficult to hear anything over the explosive, wispy release of antifreeze from the ruptured cooling systems of both the Miata and the GMC, and in one of the vehicles, Walt could not tell which, something stinky was cooking on an exhaust manifold, sounding not unlike an idiot cook having put three pounds of frozen potatoes into an overheated French fry cooker, accompanied by the sound of the water reacting violently with the hot oil. The stench from the cooking anti-freeze was a sick-sweet smell, immediately and distractedly reminding Walt of all those dogs that supposedly died after drinking anti-freeze, although he can't actually recall anybody personally who had a dog kill themselves in such a way. _Stupid bastards had it coming, who the hell drinks green shit anyway?_

After the nausea, pain, faded memories, and fuzzy vision faded a bit, having learned his lesson about how one with horrific injuries wouldn't be wise to turn their head quickly, he slowly again turned his head to see who or what had stopped to help.

"Oh, my, you don't look good!" said the stranger.

Well, no shit, genius. I just got hit by another car.

"No need to swear, my good man. I'm just stopped to help."

Wait, I didn't say anything to him.

"Yes sir, I know you didn't 'say' anything. Before you say anything else, my good fellow, allow me to me get right to the point of this very important conversation."

The gentleman pulled his tan slacks up a bit, braced his right hand on the body panel right next to what remained of the driver's side door of the Mazda, and then kneeled down, putting his head level with Walt's.

He also noticed now that the man was wearing a peculiar white buttoned shirt, with weird, rounded lapels, like someone might see on a picture from the late 1800's. He couldn't see anything else, but Walt had seen enough to know that something was not right about this guy. There was evening something wrong with the guy's voice, as it sounded like something he might have heard from an old video of Teddy Roosevelt speaking at a campaign rally, or Henry Ford speaking to the public. American accent, but it sounded old.

The newcomer began speaking.

"You see, I did not stop to help, By Jingo."

Who the hell still says, 'By Jingo'?

"Well, sir, actually, I do. But the nature of why I do that is not of an important matter, or is my ability to hear your thoughts. I am here to discuss our future."

"What do you mean, 'our' future?"

"What I mean, kindred sir, is that first you need to cease speaking in your mind only, simply because I can hear it when you speak that way."

"But..."

"Second, you are about to die, and I do not, and cannot, in good, honest conscience, wish to see that happen, at least before I might make you some sort of deal."

_Oh shit,_ thought Walt.

Hello, Walt, dear sir? I need you to speak to me in person, or I may have to take a rather imperious and scurrilous action to ensure that I have your undivided and undiluted attention. Do I now have that attention, kindred sir?

As is struck by lightning, Walt replied back.

"Yes, sir. What do you want from me?"

As he said this, he glanced at the steering wheel and remains of the exploded airbag, only inches from his face. He could also make out the stench of cordite or whatever the hell it was that was used to fire off the airbags, the one in the steering wheel that mule-kicked his face and his chest, before the steering wheel came to rest upon his rib cage, and the other, over on the passenger side of the dash, which protected...nobody, a useless gesture that looked good on paper and in the sales brochures, but since most people traveled alone most of the time...almost wholly pointless.

"Now, that is indeed a marked improvement. A jolly good one! By Jove! While I do not normally mind speaking to you directly, consciousness to consciousness, I find that the individual thoughts and voices get a bit muddled, given that you are the only one typically talking in your own mind, and are not used to someone else mucking about in there. I also note that..."

Walt interrupted the newcomer by again talking to himself mentally.

... _I wonder when he's going to get to the point; I don't know how long I can keep it to..._

It was at this point where Walt experienced a somewhat-sudden onset level of pain and torment unlike ever before, completely drowning out the heretofore-excessive levels of suffering coming from his chest, left arm, and left leg, something akin to an entire 114-piece symphony orchestra of agony suddenly playing at a booming full volume, immediately engulfing the quiet violin solo of affliction that he previously thought was already entirely too loud, as it shot up the length of his body, as if a python constructed of pure energy was wrapping him, no, definitely devouring him in coils of biting electricity, giving the mental impression of a controlled explosion from feet to head.

Not only was it a physical level of pain causing Walt to scream out, his mind also screamed out in unison, as a loud tinkling of crushing, impending doom exploded in his mind, with whoever or whatever was doing this to him saying, _this is only the merest of glimpses into the torrid depths of what awaits you if you do not do everything exactly as I say, old chap._

Before the attack, he was already close to fainting dead away from the shattered left arm that appeared as a contortionist's wildest dream, hand touching elbow, and the loudly-throbbing pulse of fire that shot up from his left ankle, a slow, loud, Morse-code 'dit dit dit' reminding Walt that something was horribly, horribly wrong. This sense of darkness was also gathering allies: the Miata was a poor choice of automobile, and it was already an incredibly tight fit around him in the best of times, Walt's body being a hand forced into a plastic and steel Isotoner glove that was at least two sizes too small.

Now, with the car effectively collapsed around him, and the steering wheel jammed into his chest, previously-unknown pangs of claustrophobia also added to the chorus of noise that represented the mountain range of pain and suffering that Walt was going through. With the newcomer (presumably?) now attacking him...while he was fully aware that he was being attacked, he also had the mental image of someone who might be having an out-of-body experience, as he alternated back and forth between someone who was jammed into the car, being electrocuted, tortured, whatever was happening, and was also standing next to the oddly-dressed man, looking at himself thrashing inside of the car.

As he stared at his disembodied self, and at the same time felt the complete and total punishment that was occurring to his body, Walt was able to ask himself one question:

Why am I not dead?

The stranger quickly replied.

Walt, I'm not going to let you black out from this experience. This is why I am both attacking you, and keeping you awake, to let you know, with the utmost importance, that I have something incredibly important to say to you, and that I need your full attention. Do you now understand what I am capable of doing to you if I have not your full attention? You will speak when I tell you to, and remain silent the rest of the time. Return now to your body.

As if a gigantic electronic throw switch were being disconnected at a power station somewhere, the continuous explosion of energy shut itself off, and collision-of-galaxies-level of symphonic, musical pain quickly subsided to the previous violin and snare-drum solo still being played by his arm and leg.

Between ragged gasps of breath, in which his chest had limited movement due to the close proximity of the spectacularly-bent Miata steering wheel, Walt barely croaked out, "Who are you, and what....what...what do you want?"

"As I said previously, my good man, you're dying. Heading for the happy hunting ground. At this point, you are probably wondering why nobody has stopped to assist you, even though the traffic through this rather vital arterial highway vein is quite heavy. The fact is that if you are going to die, but I might be able to save you, but in a limited fashion."

"What...do you mean?"

"I am actually not alive in the sense that you imagine. I need a body. You have one, that while initially in perfect shape, it will need considerable repair. However, to fix it, I have to 'gut the fish', which means, dear chap, that I have to scoop out what you might consider to be your 'soul, and replace it with mine when I am done fixing you up."

"Screw that....I'll take my chances, and wait it out....go steal from the bitch over there in the truck, she's the one who hit me."

"No, sir, she is already an empty vessel, and unable to make the choice."

Walt felt his consciousness rapidly dimming.

I don't want to die, but I can't handle this. I must stay awake, someone will stop, Jesus Christ, there were dozens of cars on this goddamned road a moment ago.

"Sir? Do I have your attention, still? Your wife and children do not wish for you to die, either. However, I can at least spare them from your untimely demise. Think about it a moment. Your two sons and one daughter get to keep their father. Your wife gets to keep her husband. I will of course be the one they remain in love with: your kids will have me being the one who is reading to them at night, and afterward, your wife will be embracing me instead of you, although she will continue to assume, however incorrectly, it is you in bed with her."

"Fuck you. I think I hear someone stopping."

Walt's heart picked up as what sounded like the clatter of a late-model diesel pickup began decelerating, dropping to an idle as the driver applied his brakes. However, his hope slowly fell to the floor of his soul, like a torn bag of popcorn kernels slowly releasing its contents onto the floor, when it was apparent that the driver was not coming to a complete stop. Whoever was in the truck was simply slowing down to rubberneck the accident...and then cruelly accelerate away again, resuming his journey.

"You...you fucking bastard!! Come back!!"

In Walt's mind, never had there been a more brazen reply of 'sucks to be you!' ever heard in his short life. He simply assumed that someone would eventually stop to help, but a growing fear began to manifest itself that it might be possible that no one would.

"Sorry, my good man. They are too busy with their own affairs to stop and assist their fellow human being. Sorry state of things, really. I find it rather jejune and boorish of those self-absorbed simpletons, however, it is a sign of the times, and indicative of the downfall of mankind, which you are now a witness to its effects."

Walt let his head slump against the steering wheel, and let out a small gasp of defeat.

"Walter? Sir? Let us get back to business, as time is at a premium. You have two choices. You can allow me to replace you, as my kind have been serving as 'replacements' for centuries, and have replaced everyone from slaves to royalty.

"Or you can simply die in torment, bleeding to death in that Japanese vehicular monstrosity you have allowed yourself to be killed in, wondering if your wife and children will ever recover from your passing..."

"I'm going to live, sir, someone is gonna stop. They have to fucking stop! I'm blocking most of the goddamned highway!"

The newcomer ignored Walt's protestations, and continued speaking.

"Remember, however, that I do not do this gladly. Oftentimes, those who I replace have miserable lives, with some of them tricking me into extending their worthless existence, when dying was a pity, and I have suffered greatly, as I am unable to die until the husks I inhabit either pass on from natural causes, or are killed...Oh my, sorry to interrupt my story, but it appears you have a problem, sir, and unfortunately will not have a lot of time to make your decision...which I must have in order to proceed...my, my, look, the other vehicle has caught on fire."

Walt, his consciousness slowly ebbing away, now smelled the stench of plastic and rubber burning, saw through the spider webbed, broken windshield that the stupid bitch's Yukon had caught on fire, and that the nose of what remained of his Miata was now fully engulfed.

Walt screamed, "NOOOO!!! I don't want to burn! HELP! AGGGHHHH!!!"

He began thrashing wildly, now that self-preservation adrenalin reserves from sheer panic were kicking in. The smoke from the fire now began wrapping around the broken windshield, and choking Walt as he gasped in breaths of air between screams.

Walt. I can save you.

"I don't want to die!"

It's too late, Walt. Nobody is coming. Save yourself. Save your family.

"Fuck you! HELLLP!!!"

And with that last scream, he began wrenching himself back and forth, violently. His left arm pulled free of the sheet metal embrace, and even though his forearm was pointed straight forward, the mangled mass ahead of the elbow drooped down like a much-overcooked dinner sausage. Now, if he could only get that foot loose...

Walt, it's too late. Look at the dash, Walt. Look at the floor.

In between cracked-open sections of the destroyed, plastic dashboard, flames were beginning to poke through melting grommets in the firewall, dripping burning rubber and plastic onto the carpet, which was also beginning to alight.

"No, No, No, No! I'M NOT GONNA FUCKING DIE!!!"

Smoke inhalation had other plans, however. Toxic fumes from burning plastic and rubber filled his lungs, overpowering the adrenaline boost coursing through Walt's veins, and he slumped, quickly beginning to lose consciousness.

This is your last chance, Walt. I can fix you. I can make you better. I can save your life.

"...no...wait...I think I can...hear...a fire truck...or something...."

No, Walt. You must be mine. You will not escape me.

"Fuck you....you look...like...a fucking...sissy...anyway...."

And with that last statement, Walt passed out, denying the strange man his chance at collecting another soul for his master. And as the fire and rescue unit pulled up, and immediately began dousing the flames, with EMT's rushing in to assess and revive the victims, a keening sound which began at a low, grinding, demonic howling, ranging from a level too low for the human ear to process, to a high-pitched squeal that sounded like ten thousand nails being forcibly dragged across a hundred chalkboards, this cacophony of noise thinly disguised as anger began emanating from both the ground and open air.

The vibration at the lower ends of the howling shook chunks of asphalt loose from the roadbed, knocked firefighters and EMT's off of their feet, and vibrated both a fire truck and ambulance around several feet in every direction, almost flipping over the fire truck as it slowly began moving away from the crown of the highway, and into the ditch. This shaking was also violent enough to separate the two vehicles locked in a metallic embrace, and so loud as to permanently damage the hearing of everyone present, with the range of sound being so high that the open, vacant eyes of the deceased woman in the doomed GMC exploded out of their eye sockets under the pressure.

Angry was the unseen demon that had just been denied his spoil, and his vengeance was terrible, the actual target of the newcomer being not Walt's body...but something else entirely.

After an entire minute of full, absolute terror, the sound disappeared as abruptly as it manifested itself, never to be heard ever again.

Whatever it was that occurred, which was conveniently left out of the accident report, was better left unsaid by those who witnessed what happened, but it was never forgotten, especially by the demon who would lay in wait for Walt's soul through the remainder of Walt's life, however short or long it would be.

As Walt later briefly regained consciousness in the Miata, as the full fury unleashed by a hastily-aimed fire hose hit him in the face, waking him immediately, a voice could be heard in his mind.

I'll be waiting for you, Walt. By Jove, your soul is mine.

### Author Bio

See more of Larry's work at http://www.larrylandpress.com/

### Chapter Fifteen

Devils Er

A Samuel J. Bass Poem

Driving off onto the 101 rush hour concrete jungle, there are no exits, only obligations to stay stuck in my mobile cubicle moving at the speed of slow.

Hidden flowers on the hillside bloom away mocking my insanity, they cheer me on to see beyond these gray prison bevels.

Gray blocks hollow until they're filled with my humanity, making me take the choices reaped with devils.

I feel like I've lived a day in one hour, it's so early it could be midnight.

Twisting and turning in my brain, the sun suddenly ridicules, feeding me a fresh case of insane.

I'm at a point of sorrow, sorrow of an exceptional quality, Grade A-farm raised, take two tomorrow.

The raven croaked nevermore, Juliet is the sun, dangren-burang

1.We have to go. I'm almost happy here

2. Complacency rots insides, then refills with fear. So - Listen to them - children of the night. What music they make

3. Clamoring for sight.

There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof4. Filled with truths, synapse salvoes, loves, and drugs. We love what we eat and eat who we are. GERManic germs looking for psychological thrills. You work the guns, I'll rattle the hills.

Smoking cannabis to an over-extent, hope lost, old kung-fu and 80's movies won, I eat smoke for breakfast.

This sun is still mocking me, "Start your day, be productive, make a baby, then expiry."

Stepping into society, I'm a satanic leaf-tailed gecko wanting freedom, abdicate, and let go your kingdom.

Halfheartedly half washed dishes in my sink; this entropy roller-coaster of highs and lows drives me to drink and think, then drink and smoke, making life one strange syrupy green swirl of mammarys and calamities filled with brevity's of rarities.

5,000 images, 2 comedies, and a numb right arm later I've turned into dark matter, invisibly pulling all that matters together into a forever stretched infinitely, literally making synergies out of life-energies.

  1. Yield to nobody when one is doing what is right

  2. . 2) Ender's Game, Ender Wiggin

  3. 3) Bram Stoker's Dracula 4) V For Vendetta

See more of Sam's work at http://www. SamuelBass.com

###

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