Sadie's Body

It was gonna break Momma’s heart, seein’ Sadie like this. She was layin’ on her side, like she does when she sleeps, ‘cept her legs were wrong. Her spine was crooked, too, and the way she lay in the gutter, leanin’ against the curb, looked like the way my bicycle sat on its kick-stand. Blood soaked the entire lower half of her body, makin’ her fur all wet and dirty like when she swims in the pond down the road from our town-house.
Momma hated when Sadie swimmed in that pond. If she was havin’ a really bad day, she’d kick Sadie and call her another name I heard on TV sometimes. It sounded like “itch” but really bad, “bitch.” And momma would try to hit us, too, if we said that word. “It’s a word Mommies and Daddies use when they’re mad,” she’d say to me and Tommy, “and y’all definitely ain’t old enough to be Daddies.”
“Where the hell are we gonna put her?” said Tommy. I was so focused on Sadie that I didn’t even hear Tommy come back outside, so I jumped a little when he spoke. I turned around and saw he was wearin’ his work overalls.
Tommy was thirteen years old, five years older than me, but since Daddy was gone he acted like the man of the house. Momma liked havin’ him act all responsible like that, but it made him bossy and mean sometimes.
“We gotta bury her, don’t we? And put a gravestone on top of it, like on TV, so people know how good of a dog she was.” I said.
“It’s a fuckin’ dog, James. Graves are for people.”
I knew he was really mad ‘cause he called me “James” like Momma does, and he used that “yuck” word that Momma hates.
“But Momma loved her like a person! Sadie was almost our sister, Tommy. And isn’t she German or somethin’, like a person?”
“She’s a German Shepherd, dumbass. It’s just a type of dog. And I don’t even know why I’m helping you with this, it was your fault she got hit. Momma told you that when ever you take her out to use the damn leash!”
“I’m sorry! I just wanted to play ball with her, and she can’t run in that stupid leash!”
“Shut up. We gotta get rid of her or Momma will know it was our fault, and I’m supposed to keep an eye on you while she’s workin’, and she’ll get just as mad at me. I have an idea, wait here.”
Tommy walked up our driveway into the garage. I was glad I remembered shoes this time, ‘cause the black driveway gets really hot in the sun and hurts my feet. Our house looked just like every other house on the street. They were even painted the same color, an ugly blue that looked like old jeans. When we first moved here, I got lost playing outside once. I couldn’t figure out how to get home, ‘cause no matter where I went, it looked the same as where I just been.
Tommy came back from the garage with a black tarp under his arm and two shovels in one hand layin’ on his shoulder. He stabbed the shovels into the ground so they stayed up, and then he spread the tarp on the ground next to Sadie.
“Here.” Tommy pulled one of the shovels up and handed it to me. “Help me get her body onto the plastic, and don’t get any blood on you, we don’t wanna have to lie to Momma about that, too.”
We each slid the end of our shovels under both sides of Sadie’s body and lifted her off the ground. Her head flopped off the end of my shovel and I saw her eyes, her dead eyes. We set her on the tarp, and it looked like she was starin’ a thousand miles above me into the sky.
“When Momma gets home,” Tommy told me, “We’re gonna tell her that Sadie ran away. You know what, don’t even say anything, you’re a bad liar and Momma’d spot it comin’ from a mile away.”
“But I don’t like it when we lie to Momma!” I said. “I can tell her the truth, Tommy, I’ll take all the blame for it and you won’t get in any trouble.”
“I told you, Jimmy, Momma told me to watch you and if she finds out about Sadie she’ll know I wasn’t watchin’ you. Then she’ll blame me for this and I don’t want Momma beatin’ me for killin’ her dog.”
“No, Tommy, we gotta tell Momma. We’re treatin’ Sadie like garbage! Momma would wanna know so she can say good bye and stuff.”
“Shut up and quit actin’ like a sissy. Grab the other corners of the tarp, we’re gonna take the body to the river and dump it there.”
I had heard that phrase before, on TV, when the bad mobster guys killed a good guy they would “dump his body in the river.” It was a bad death, and the good guy’s wife and momma would cry when they found his body. I thought of Mommy finding Sadie’s body and how it would make her cry, and Tommy became a bad guy in my mind.
“No!” I screamed at Tommy, “You’re not dumping her in the river! She was a good dog, you fuckin’… Arrgh!”
I couldn’t think of no more words to say so I jumped at Tommy. I swung my hands at his face and punched at his stomach. All I could think about was the good memories of Sadie. I remember how Momma put a hat on her for my birthday, and I scratched at Tommy’s face. I thought about the time Sadie barked really loud at some bad people who were outside our house, and I made a fist and punched Tommy’s side as hard as I could. As we fell to the ground, I remembered how Sadie was smaller than all the other puppies in her litter and how Momma picked her out just for that.
Tommy’s back was on the street and I was on top of him so I thought I’d won, but he grabbed my wrists with both his hands so I couldn’t hit him no more. I flinched and closed my eyes real tight ‘cause I thought he was gonna hit me. But nothin’ happened, and I when I opened my eyes I saw that Tommy was covered in blood, all over his arms and chest. There was blood all over me, too, on my arms and shirt and pants.
I looked at the street around us and we were layin’ right in the spot that Sadie died. It was her blood that colored our skin and soaked our clothes. My chest started heavin’ and my eyes started to cry, and when I looked down at Tommy’s face, I saw that he was cryin’ too. I let my arms go loose in his hands, and he wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy, God, I’m so sorry,” Tommy whispered into my ear. “You were right, she was a good dog, she was a real good dog.”
Tommy helped me stand up, and we noticed it had started to get dark. The street lamp at the corner clicked on, and that meant Momma would be home soon. Tommy folded the tarp over Sadie’s body, so we wouldn’t have to look at it no more. We walked to the back yard to wash some of the blood off with the hose, but our clothes stayed red. Me and Tommy didn’t say anything to each other while we did this.
We stayed quiet when we went and sat on the stairs to the front door. Neither of us said a word until we saw her headlights turn down the street and into the driveway. Her nice work shoes click-clacked on the driveway as she walked up to us and asked what happened. At first she thought we had been fighting, but Tommy told her about Sadie and how he was being mean about it. I was glad Tommy talked ‘cause I was too busy cryin’. I couldn’t stop thinking about those memories and how there wasn’t gonna be any more.
Momma pinched her waitressing apron and wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Come on, boys,” she said softly, like only Momma could say, “let’s go inside and clean you up.”

Smoking

His hand habitually slides into his pocket
and withdraws a
cigarette.
Zippo brand clink-zip and the fire starts
Ignition.
Warmth like hot coffee on an empty stomach
fills his respiratory system.
Exhale. Peace.
Stress burns away with the tobacco. He knows about
the cancer, the disease, the death on each drag.
But he doesn’t care. The only focus right now is
getting the orange cherry-star to the horizon of the filter.
Sunset.
A tingly burn on his lips tells him, smoke break’s over.
The tan rocket departs from his lips, and lands
thrusters down
on the grayscale lunar surface of the ashtray.

Prison Etiquette

What was it like, you ask? Well let me tell you one thing: everyone was nicer in prison.

For example, today, some bitch collided into me as I made my right turn, the one after the second drinking fountain, into the lunch room. Her mocha-latte-frappa-chino-whatever spilled all over my new suit. It was new because I had lost 40 pounds while serving my eight months. I thank God they gave me this job back.

But yeah, this bitch. Splatters her coffee all over my person, and you know what she says to me? "You're lucky I'm late to my executive (she enjoyed stressing that word) meeting, otherwise you'd be buying me a new one, asshole."

And that was the extent of our interaction. No apology, no help cleaning myself off, nothing. That's the one thing I miss about prison: everyone one was polite. Here's a story that will knock your D & G socks off. One day in the lunch room, something like what just happened to me, happened. Except it was between a Crip and a Neo-Nazi. That's right, you heard me. But you know what they did? The Neo-Nazi apologizes and help the Crip clean the mess up!

Not here, though. Out here, everyone's a fucking animal.

Agent Goldie and the Baer Brothers

Write a story that takes a children's story or fairy tale and put it into the contemporary adult world.

"Wake up, bitch."

Goldie's eyes twitched open as the obviously male hand patted her face. She felt heat from the single light bulb drifting on its string above her, a stark contrast to the cold steel of the table on her back. The stiff resistance from the straps around her arms and legs said she wasn't going anywhere for a while.

"Well, Well, Ms. Goldie. No surprise to find you here," said a Russian voice so deep, the man sounded hollow. "We find you in duct. Try to kill Ivan."

"You pinko commie bastards have been terrorizing this state long enough!" spat Goldie, hoping the words would stick to the giant, scarred face hovering inches above her own. She had read every file the organization had on Vlad Baer and his brothers, but that didn't make the situation any less terrifying.

"And American embassy only send itty bitty girl agent?" mocked Vlad. "Is insult. Too easy to stop you. Igor's audio equipment pick you up right outside. You come for Ivan, yes?"

"Of course she would," said Igor, his accent more of a flourish than an impedance. "He is our public face, our political side. Without him, we Baer brothers are nothing more than simple terrorists. It seems you are well aware that we have so much more planned than simple bombs and robberies."

Igor accompanied his voice in the room with his presence. His slender, pale form was exaggerated standing next to the mountain called Vlad.

"Oh, good to see you, Igor," Blondie said behind a wry grin. "Or should I say 'Isabella'."

"Wha-?" gasped Igor.

"Yes, I read about your operation. Seems Ivan didn't want a female on the team; would make you seem weak. So a slice and a stitch later, you've all got matching equipment."

"Poshyol ty' shalava!" cried Igor as his soft, white knuckles connected with Goldie's face, forcing a squirt of blood out her nose.

"Enough," said a voice in perfect King's English. Ivan entered the room, and his shined shoes clacked to a halt at the edge of the interrogation table. "We have more interesting things in store for Miss Goldie," said Ivan, his voice trailing off, as if it was being absorbed by the golden lock of hair he twirled between his fingertips.

Shadow People

Little confusion over this blog entry, so it's a day late. I'm also not sure if the previous post was done right or even necessary. Oh well.

I know we were supposed to combine one of our mini-stories with an urban legend, but my imagination got so carried away with the idea of "Shadow People" that I ended up writing about an experience with them. Info on the legend here.

- - -

We are smoking our first menthols behind a cheap gas station when the buzzing halogen above our heads pops bright blue and dies.

"Woah, shit," Hunter observes from behind a cloud of smoke.

My eyes adjust, and I notice how dark the rest of the block had become. The only light comes from the waning moon and the porch light above the stoop of my house.

"We should start heading back," states Hunter. He kills the last drag on his cigarette and drops it in a puddle. "Snatch oughta be done downloading."

"Yeah, dude," I say. "I love that movie. 'I don't want that dog dribbling on my seats.'"

"'Your seats?'" Hunter quotes back. "'Tyrone, this is a stolen car!'"

Our laughter echoes down the street, bouncing between the line of symmetrical houses until the sound is absorbed by the woods that circle my neighborhood. We continue walking down the street toward my house, the lone light near the front door like a light house.

"Hang on a sec, dude," I say, "I gotta take a leak."

I walk between two houses up to the tree line. No need to worry about the neighbors; most of the people left this street over the past couple of years. It's a bit unnerving, though. Standing behind me are two empty husks of life. There should be a family sleeping inside, filling the rooms with soft breath. Nightlights illuminating flower-covered curtains. Instead a dead, cold black stares at my back through the glass panes. A quote from Mark Twain drifts to the top of my thoughts, something about staring into an abyss and having it stare back at you, but my mind is interrupted when I turn around and Hunter is gone.

"Dude? Where'd you go?" I call out. "Quit dicking around, man, I'm hungry. Let's go."

Silence. Something moves in my peripheral vision, a figure, I think. I turn to see what I think is a head and shoulders but there is nothing but space between me and the curb. I step out to the street and strain my eyes looking for a sign of my friend.

Hoping he just got bored and went to my house without me, I start walking towards my house. Something drops on the asphalt behind me, making a wet, meaty noise I'd only heard in a butcher shop.

I twist around and gasp, "Hunter?"

Darkness answers instead, a darkness so thick and deep that my mind thinks to reach out and touch it. The moon is shoved aside by clouds and black shrouds the streets. The world has shut off, it seems.

I turn back towards my house and do not see the porch light. Instead I see a figure in the center of the road. A faint glow circles his frame, highlighting him against the darkness brought. I again feel the sensation of something empty and dead staring at me, staring within me.

Panic pushes blood to my legs and I run. I can't see anything past the fog of darkness in front of me, but still I run. I must. I can feel him staring at my back. Suddenly I trip, and I'm falling, falling, falling. Past the ground I was running on. Past my sense of consciousness. I fall deeper into the darkness I ran from, and black slithers into my brain and I sense no more.

"Dude, you ok?"

I wake up to Hunter standing above me. I'm laying in someone's front lawn.

"Where'd you go, man?" Hunter asks. "You went for a leak, and then you didn't come back for like fifteen minutes. I wondering around looking for you and finally found your lazy-ass sleeping right here."

"Sorry, Hunter," I apologized. "I'm really tired, man, let's just go home."

I look down the street at the light above my front door. It's on and it's bright. Good. We continue on down the street, and I can't shake the feeling that something I can't see is staring directly at my back. I remember the rest of that Twain quote: "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Hoax test 1: 8/10
Hoax test 2: 4/10

The second test seemed to rely more on technical aspects in the photos rather than knowledge of what was in the photo. Like with the tall woman: yes she existed, but her photo was altered; that makes her a hoax?

What the writer can take from this and understanding of how far the bounds of our expectations for reality have been pushed. We're really not sure what to believe today; a photo that looks like an extra terrestrial turns out to be a fish that's lived at the bottom of the ocean for a very long time. The writer can combine elements of science fiction or even fantasy with a realistic fiction story, and our "gullibility" contribute greatly to the "What if?" aspect.

One Lie, One Truth.

1. Mosh pits. I'm sure everyone's got a story about a mosh pit. Mine comes from a Dropkick Murphys concert I attended back in 2007. The Murphys announced the next song, their rendition of the Irish classic "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya." Thousands of voices combined to push one massive roar of approval. Ken Casey's sandpaper vocals began the song. A mandolin joined him, the strumming telling of a much older era of music.

The band exploded into auditory chaos. Distorted guitars ripped the air. The bass of the drums shook the space inside my chest cavity. The music controlled the crowd like a puppeteer living vicariously through his performers. The tornado of the master's hands pushed and pull their bodies in unison. A sea of flesh and concert t-shirts engulfed me. I was pushed, punched, and body slammed. I tasted sweat, and blood at times. My left foot stepped around the leg of another and threw me off balance, but before my ass could touch the ground, arms and hands from all around flung me to my feet. It was a mob of brothers, hurting and looking out for each other simultaneously.

The ringing in my ears lasted three days, longer than most of the bruises. The sensation of philanthropic violence has yet to fade, and I hope to God it never does.

2. My first cigarette was a menthol. My buddy had swiped two from his mom during the week, and we met behind the gas station down the block from his house to smoke 'em. Butts from previous visitors were strewn on the ground. The way the dull orange tubes congregated around a nearby bench reminded me of spent bullet casings around a machine gun nest. I wonder how many lives the rounds had claimed.

I put the filter to my lips and licked it. The taste of rotten toothpaste tugged at my stomach. I pulled out the lighter my mom uses for her scented candles and lit the cigarette. Smoke made its way down my virgin windpipe and I could feel the cold burn tightening the internal tissue. Before I could fully exhale I stared coughing. The smoke caught in my lungs prolonged the fit and ripped at my esophagus. I could sense the wet ash taste of phlegm hacking its way up the back of my throat, pushing the threshold of my nasal passages.

But I had to impress my friend. I suppressed my whooping and finished my cigarette. We walked back to my buddy's house and he put an arm around me.

"Don't worry, dude. Next time, we'll get regulars."

Mmmmmm...... dental hygene

You wanna lose weight? Get a cavity. This morning I took oatmeal over Lucky Charms. I love those Lucky Charms, but the dull pressure of phantom pain at the back of my mouth said no.

It's almost a psychological conditioning. I see a sweet food, and thoughts of pain drive me away from it. Hooray for negative reinforcement dieting techniques.

One hundred and one

A computer voice says "Cabin pressure lost." An oxygen mask whips me across the face. Men scream, women cry. The jet engine on the other side of the plane exploded. A large hole opened where the left wing used to be.

This flight was supposed to take me out of South America, away from the mountains I had spent these past few weeks climbing. The brochure had bright words in large fonts on the cover: ADVENTURE! THRILLS! FUN!

Put someone in my chair, plummeting from 36,000 feet in the sky. I'll show him ADVENTURE! THRILLS! FUN!

Death is our last adventure.

Me and my Brother Loftis came in by the old lady's window. Her hearing aid had quit months ago so we didn't even worry about the smash of the glass. Our arrival kicked up a cloud of dust, kicking Loftis' asthma into a fit. He hacked phlegm onto the festive rug as I looked around. All I had seen of the room before was what the window would reveal.

"I thought it was bigger," Loftis said between gasps and loogies.

"Doesn't matter how big the room is," I said. "All that matters is what we came for."

The bedroom was a time machine that only went to the mid-eighties. A broken flip-clock served as the death date for the former occupant. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling, swaying from a breeze the broken window let in. A shelf full of trophies was mounted above a generic sports-theme bed spread. Next to the trophies was a photo of the kid who had won them. Unlike the rest of the junk in the room, the picture was clean. No dust. The only other object in the room that matched the picture's recent activity was the flowers laid in front of the photo. It was the flowers that changed Loftis' mind.

"We shouldn't be here, Joseph." Loftis protested. Like the parents he mimicked, he only called me Joseph when he was upset. "This kid is dead! We're, like, pissing on his grave right now. Screw the gun, let's just get outta here."

"No, Loftis. We've already come this far; it's easier to finish the job. Do you know how pissed the Brothers would be if they knew we'd come this far and then sissied out?"

"Fine. But you carry it, I want nothing to do with this anymore. It's making me sick."

The way the rifle leaned in the corner reminded me of John Wayne in a saloon door. A bolt-action Ruger twenty-two; nothing special, but the Brothers liked guns. That means we like guns . And for reasons we'll never know, they wanted this gun.

As I lowered the bedsheets Loftis had modified into a sling to carry the rifle, the door across the room from us creaked open. Fear halted all thought processes; the blood draining from my hands into my legs told me to get the hell out of there. The old lady stepped in to the room and gasped as she looked from us to the broken window to the gun I was reaching for.

"You little bastards! Get the hell out of my house!"

Loftis scurried for the window. I grabbed for the rifle. The old lady's hand plunged into her blouse and came back up with a snub-nosed .38 special. I could tell she hadn't used it recently; the recoil knocked her ass to the floor as she fired a slug at my brother. 7.1 grams of lead embedded itself in Loftis' back. He shrieked and fell from the second-story window.

"You crazy bitch!" I screamed. My right hand found the bolt of the rifle and yanked it back. I was surprised to find a brass casing staring up at me through the breech. I jammed the bolt forward and aimed the rifle at the old lady's chest.

Her hand jerked the pistol in my direction, so I squeezed my finger. Her old dinosaur body jumped as the round struck her breast. Deep red began to soak her shirt.

I lept out the window and landed next to my brother. He was laid out on his back, struggling to breathe. He muttered something about not being able to feel his legs. I lifted him onto my back and began walking towards the Brothers' house. I hope to God they'll know what to do.