1,000 Word Challenge: Shallow Victory

Note: This was my submission for the first round challenge. The genre had to be Ghost Story. The location a boxing club. The item was neon sign.

The single light bulb above the eight uneven limestone steps cast a pale light that didn’t reach the edges where no doubt the rats waited. When they were youths, Carmen and Ricky took the steps two at a time much to the chagrin of Tony, the club trainer. One time Carmen slipped on the thin fourth step, slapping his elbow down hard on the stone, and costing him a spot in an upcoming tournament.

Those were the days when the room below was a respite from the chaos of the outside world. Carmen’s dad was a drunk that beat his wife bloody for sport, and Ricky didn’t have a family per se, he simply lived with a string of uncles and aunts, few of which he shared any blood with.

Descending the stairs at midnight to the boxing club housed below the VFW was a penance now for Carmen’s sin. With each step, the rats scurried in the shadows, hungry to witness his shaming. The sound of a glove popping a heavy bag below echoed to his ears above. Carmen sighed, his ribs still aching from the night before, and continued down.

The stairs opened to a cavernous room neatly organized after another day of training. To the right was a row of lockers with a bench in front and beyond was Tony’s office. The trainer was still going strong after 40 years of sparring with punks like Carmen and Ricky. Scattered around the room were heavy bags, speed bags, medicine balls, dumbbells and jump ropes hanging from hooks. At the top of the walls were promotional posters of bright yellow, pink and green.

The lighting was fine during the day with bulbs hanging from the rafters at regular intervals, but during his visits the electrical current was dim except for occasional surges when a bulb emitted a beam well beyond its voltage. The only natural light came from a window well on the opposite wall. At night, it revealed the flashing orange glow from a neon sign advertising for the bar across the alley, reminding Carmen of a traffic sign warning people away.

The ring, with droopy ropes and a canvas covering a plywood floor, was centered in the room. Ricky paced in the ring in ratty shorts and a pair of black boxing gloves. He was still the tall, muscled boy of 17, but his eyes were ringed black and his skin still had the grayish tone it had when they pulled his lifeless corpse from the river 20 years earlier.

“Evening, Ricky,” said Carmen, while removing his shirt. Ricky never spoke, just wore that same accepting gaze Carmen first witnessed that summer day as Ricky struggled in the water and Carmen pulled the boat away. The gaze clearly stated, “That’s the way it’s going to be then.”

Carmen grabbed his old gloves from the top of the lockers. Outside the ring, the rats squeaked and a snake hissed from some dank corner. The closer he came to Ricky the hotter, more humid it became. A pool of water collected at Ricky’s feet. The stench of death and the river filled Carmen’s nostrils. A worm crawled from Ricky’s mouth, and Carmen’s stomach nearly turned.

“I can’t keep going like this,” Carmen pleaded. “It’s been so long. I’m sorry!”

If Ricky considered the plea, nothing reflected in his eyes, which had been blue but were only black now. He raised his gloves, his signal to begin.

In life, Ricky was only a week removed from winning his final amateur match before leaving for the Olympic team camp when he climbed on the boat that fateful day. He was quick with a long reach and dominated Carmen, which was also true outside the ring. Grades, Ricky pulled good ones. Girls, he got the best, including the one Carmen wanted most. Breaks, the world was bending over for him. Carmen, on the other hand, the world never ceased squatting on. The difference in luck poisoned a friendship, and Carmen’s jealousy – the one thing he certainly inherited from dear old dad – planted dark thoughts and hardened his heart.

Ricky’s first jab darted to Carmen’s right and landed on his tender ribs. He doubled over. Ricky didn’t attack again until Carmen brought his gloves back up, and then the ghost moved in with a wicked combination that peppered Carmen’s midsection. Each glove felt like a brick being slammed into his flesh. Carmen stumbled away, spitting blood into a bucket in the corner.
 
Some nights Carmen let Ricky bash away. Others, when he was really fed up, he thrashed wildly, sometimes landing glancing blows on Ricky’s clammy skin. Sometimes the sessions were 10 minutes of pounding, and other nights Ricky jabbed away for an hour.

Ricky satisfied his latest need for a pound of flesh with an upper cut that tagged Carmen in the nose, buckling his knees. Blood gushed down his chin and a canvas of stars painted his vision.

Ricky walked through the ropes and floated to the floor, his essence slowly diminishing as he went. The rats scurried away, the room cooled and the puddle of water drained away as if a plug was pulled.

Dazed, Carmen thought about that last summer when they were 17. He lost at everything, and he was losing his only friend.  Ricky borrowed the boat from one of their boxing acquaintances as a chance for reconciliation before he left town. Carmen brought the beer and knew that Ricky couldn’t swim.

They were drunk and arguing when Carmen landed his first and last good punch on his friend, sending the young boxing star into the river. For once, Carmen won. Ricky flailed in the water, and their eyes met as Carmen pulled away. It was a shallow victory. The satisfaction lasted less than a minute.

Carmen turned the boat back, but his friend was lost. He staggered to his feet in the ring, sobbing just as he had that day 20 years earlier.

1,000 word challenge: Lysandrium Treatment

Note: I am planning on entering an online competition where you are provided a genre, location and object that all must appear in a story that is a 1,000 words or less. I'll have 48 hours to write the story. Below is a practice one from an example: Sci Fi, Drug Rehab Center, Wig, that I wrote. Hope you enjoy. I'll try an post my entries once the competition begins.

 

 

Down the corridor her steps kept time for those lost in it. Edna paced in rhythm and habit past closed doors with patients sleeping off their last fix of Lysandrium. She wore heels and stepped with force off the tiles, knowing in the waning hours of slumber, her time would count the patients into a new reality. Dr. Puck developed the process over years of trial and error for those addicted to the sleeping potion used for crew members for deep space travel missions.

Considering the numbers, the trafficking of humans beyond the stars seemed not worth the human toll. If Dr. Puck’s theories were true, then thirty percent of crew members experienced mild to severe addiction to the narcotics that keep the body young and mind in limbo during voyages hundreds of light years away. That’s the theory he offered for publication. In their long, private discussions, he insists the number is likely much higher.

“Don’t forget, so many go and don’t return. The politicians blame all those on malfunctions with equipment, unforeseen asteroid fields and contact with hostile beings, but that’s not always the case. I think some crews have nearly one hundred percent mental breakdown. Complete catastrophe.”

Dr. Puck’s passion enthralled Edna. Working with him tingled the very nerves that had pushed her toward becoming a nurse. And, Dr. Puck, he was so…. She nearly stopped pacing, but caught herself. Only a few minutes away from reanimation, and she nearly blew it. If only he’d let his guard down about mating with colleagues. Other nerves tingled with that thought.

 ***

 

“What time is it?”

 “It’s evening.”

 “That’s not what I asked!” The patient yelled. The man thrashed his head back and forth, and when that didn’t have enough effect, he slammed it back hard into his pillow. His wrists were secured to the metal rails that ran along each side of the bed. His door was the first to open that night, and he was the first to wake. Nights like this, she earned her money greeting all these pour lost souls.

 “Please, calm yourself. We need you to be calm.”

 “Then tell me what time it is?” The Lysandrium-rich mind fixated on time.

“It’s getting near time for you to return to teaching. We need to get you well.”

“Teaching? I’m no damn teacher.”

***

“Please, I just want to sleep. Don’t you understand?” The Lysandrium-rich mind longed for sleep, but couldn’t without a fix.

“Mr. Roberts, you’ve slept so long already. It’s time to wake and to live.”

This man was grossly overweight, and his stomach slipped out from under the cotton white t-shirt issued to all the patients. He sat in a white recliner, the walls were white, and he wept.

“Why do you keep calling me that name? I know that’s not who I am.”

“What is your name then, Mr. Roberts?”

He wept.

“I don’t remember. Please, can I just sleep some more?”

 ***

“God, what don’t you understand, you dumb beast! I need to know what time it is.”

 Two days and this patient had not relented the business about time, meaning he’d likely need to cycle through another small dosage of Lysandrium. Dr. Puck called it resetting. The mind remained fixated in a past a thousand years gone while the body had moved through space and time. The mind longs for returning to its previous environment, but that world is gone. Sometimes with enough cycles with the drug, the mind finally adjusts to the new reality often by fixating on something else. Edna shivered whenever Dr. Puck brought the particulars up. Why had man ever reached for the stars?

Edna closed the door, resolving to confess her love for the doctor after her shift.

***

Edna sat quietly next to Dr. Puck in the community room. It was her first time near him since he rebuked her affections a month earlier. Fifteen of the patients from the previous cycle had progressed to actualization sessions.

“I’m scared to ask it.” The patient seated across the table from them said.

 "Scared to ask what, Ms. Conrad?” Dr. Puck asked. He made a note on his handheld computer without looking at the patient. Edna loathed that he sometimes ignored them. Didn’t he understand the confusion they were feeling.

“Was I a man when I came here?”

 Dr. Puck laughed. It was a good impression of a real laugh.

 “I am a good doctor, Ms. Conrad, but I am not that good.”

 The patient, impossibly thin and bald, wiped at her eyes. Edna’s heart broke a little. The drugs were so unfair. They robbed these folks of everything, even their identity.

"I just remember being a man, that’s all.”

***

It wasn’t a date. Dr. Puck had made that much clear. The two sat alone in the cafeteria, eating the mush served to everyone in the facility.

 “The Lysandrium breaks them, Edna. You should know this better than anyone.”

 “The lying. I can’t handle the lying.”

 “It not a lie. They used to be someone, but that mind is broken. We build a new one.”

Edna slurped the mush into her mouth. How had she ever loved this man?

“Do you even care for them?”

“Edna, they are my life’s work.”

“Did you ever care for me?”

He swirled the mush around his plate, before tipping it and letting it slide onto his tray. Taking his napkin, he wiped the plate clean until it shined. Before she could react, he reached across the table and pulled her hair.

He tugged once and hard, and she yelped as it tore away from her scalp. Stunned, she glared at him holding what she clearly could see now was a blond wig in one hand and the plate toward her in the other.

"Care for you, Edna? How could I not? You’re my greatest success.”

Dropping the wig and the plate in front of her, he left Edna staring at a face in the plate.

 

Work: Two Fingers in the Air

Note: Hoping to turn this into a creative non fiction essay with several different parts. Total goal isn't completely clear, and this is certainly a draft. Just thought I'd share.

Work: A force is said to do work if, when acting on a body, there is a displacement of the point of application in the direction of the force.

Rosemary returned to her receptionist chair during the first week of the rest of my life, turned back in the direction she came and shot a double-barreled bird flip in the air. Welcome to your career change, Dan. Share a cramped, bland office and suffocate in the equally bland life of proposal writing for a surveying and engineering firm, and act as a referee between your boss and his receptionist.

Here’s the office: White painted walls and gray carpet, light gray desktop with light gray drawers, a gray bulletin board, a set of cabinets with doors painted white with a countertop shaded in a blue trying its hardest also to be white. The lone decoration – at least until I added a Cubs schedule to the bulletin board – is two maps - one of Illinois and the other a close up of Chicago. Both good for planning my escape.

The door to our office opens toward my desk, so my immediate scenery is the door and the back of Rosemary’s head. The door is wood. It is brown with a silver door knob. It’s nice. Rosemary’s hair is dark brown and curly. She is in her 60s, seems to hate this place, and is prone to outbursts. The person I replaced apparently left because of escalating conflicts with Rosemary. The outbursts don’t bother me, I’ve certainly dealt with worse, and I appreciate a good “Stone Cold” Steve Austin impression as much as the next guy.

Rosemary’s two-finger salute was directed toward Tom, our boss except he refuses to admit it, who no doubt was out of the line of sight in his own office, but most likely felt the force of emotion emitting from the fingers just the same. Tom professes to have 10 years left in his tenure and anointed me as his replacement about 10 minutes after arriving. Tom is a marketing robot bought on clearance from some sort of Cold War era robot-making factory in Siberia. He has the necessary information logged in his memory cards, but his brain wiring is so mish-mashed together that it comes out in fits and starts and oftentimes is lost in his programming before it reaches his lips. His nearly daily proclamation of adult ADD is probably as accurate as it is maddening to work with. In the end, he lives by our owner’s credo “Show up every day and do our best,” and while he has few scruples when it comes to business, he genuinely seems concerned about pretty much everyone and everything.
 
Rosemary hates Tom, and Tom inexplicably fears Rosemary. I am the buffer.

Which brings me to a memory from a wedding reception I attended several years ago with my wife. The best man – I think – was the brother of the bride, and delivered a toast where he commended his little sister for picking a man, who wasn’t afraid to work or to get his hands dirty. I suppose that’s a sign of living in the rural Midwest where work and the willingness to stick your hands into basically anything is valued over all other personality traits. Hell, for all I know, that beaming husband went home and mauled his wife, cheated on his taxes and refused to recycle, but damn it if he wasn’t first in line to help pull the engine out of my old Ford. What a guy!

The part about having a fear of getting one’s hands dirty actually stuck with me for a while. I realized sometime between my teen years and advancing into adulthood, or adulting if you’re on Twitter, I grew a distaste for doing anything that did get my hands dirty. Weird right, especially for a kid that grew up on a farm. I don’t know how it happened, other than that through a series of jobs and life choices, my hands rarely did get filthy, and when they did, I didn’t like it. Once I heard that speech, a shame for this condition started to brew. It’s probably why I eat so many sweets. Maybe officiating Rosemary and Tom skirmishes is my penance.

Working hands and hands working evolved us beyond the apes. Some of us make that step into constructive time consumption, stop and look back, and wonder why the hell we ever left the jungle. The rest of us put on our pants on each day and trudge through the tasks, quietly, diligently, lazily and sometimes with both middle fingers flashing above our head.

The modern way for measuring life is by work, at least in my mind it is, and lately my life ruler has been out seeing how I measure up.

Red's reading list

Note: So I decided a while back that I would log all the books that I've read. The problem being is that I don't remember all the books that I have read. There are two for sure missing from this list where I remember plot points of the story but can't recall titles or authors. They might come to me sometime. I am also sure there are more novels that I read in school, but its really a stretch to remember all of those. I also know I've read most of the Shakespeare's histories, but its hard to keep the Richards and Henrys straight. Just thought this was worth sharing. Updated 8-20-18

Will Adams – 1

The Exodus Quest

George Beahm -1

Stephen King: America’s Best Loved Boogeyman

John Berendt – 1
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Thomas Berger – 1

 Arthur Rex

Dan Brown – 2

Angels & Demons
The Lost Symbol

Kate Chopin – 1

The Awakening

J.M. Coetzee – 1

Disgrace

Joseph Conrad -1

Heart of Darkness

Michael Crichton – 2
Jurassic Park
Congo

Frank Deford – 1

Over Time

David Eddings -5

Pawn of Prophecy
Queen of Sorcery
Magician’s Gambit
Castle of Wizardry
Enchanters’ End Game

Nicholas Evans – 2

The Brave
The Loop

Tina Fey – 1

Bossypants

F. Scott Fitzgerald – 1

The Great Gatsby

E.M. Forster – 1
Howards End
 

Mick Foley – 1

Have a Nice Day

Tana French – 2

Into the Woods
The Likeness

Neil Gaiman - 1
American Gods

Susan Griffin - 1

A Chorus of Stones

Ron Hall & Denver Moore -1

Same Kind of Different as Me
 

Jane Hamilton - 1

A Map of the World

Jim Harrison – 1

The English Major

Kent Haruf - 6

Plainsong
Eventide
Where You Once Belonged
The Tie That Binds
Benediction

Our Souls at Night
 
Martin Heidegger – 1
Being and Time
 
Gerard Helfrich – 1
High Cotton
 
Ernest Hemmingway – 1
Old Man and the Sea
 
Frank Herbert – 4
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
 
Sheri Holman - 1
The Mammoth Cheese
 

Homer - 2

The Odyssey
The Iliad
 
Zola Neale Hurston – 1
Their Eyes Were Watching God
 

Aldous Huxley – 1

Brave New World
 

John Irving - 3

A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Widow for a Year
The World According to Garp
 
Tommy James (with Martin Fitzpatrick) – 1

Me, the Mob, and the Music

 

Robert Jordan - 6

The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos

Garrison Keillor – 2

Lake Wobegon Days
Pontoon

Ken Kesey – 1
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
 

Stephen King - 35

The Shining
Night Shift
The Stand
Different Seasons
Skeleton Crew
It
Eyes of the Dragon
Four Past Midnight
Needful Things
Delores Claiborne
Nightmares & Dreamscapes??
Insomnia
Desperation
Bag of Bones
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Hearts in Atlantis
On Writing
Dreamcatcher
Full Dark, No Stars
Doctor Sleep
11/22/63
Gerald’s Game
The Tommyknockers

Rose Madder
Christine
 
The Dark Tower Series
The Gunslinger
The Drawing of Three
The Wastelands
Wizard and Glass
The Wolves of Calla
Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower
The Wind Through the Keyhole
 
As Richard Bachman
The Long Walk
The Regulators
Blaze
 

Barbara Kingslover - 6

The Bean Trees
Pigs In Heaven
The Poisonwood Bible
Prodigal Summer

The Lacuna
Flight Behavior
 
Alex Kotolowitz – 1
There Are No Children Here
 

Chuck Klosterman - 6

Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs
Killing Yourself to Live
Fargo Rock City
IV
Downtown Owl
Eating the Dinosaur
 

Dean Koontz - 9

The Door to December
Strangers
Lightning
Cold Fire
Winter Moon
Dark Rivers of the Heart
Phantoms
Midnight
Strange Highways

John Krakauer – 2

Into the Wild
Under the Banner of Heaven
 

Andrea Lee – 1

Sarah Phillips
 

Jim Lehrer – 1

Super
 

Thomas Malory – 1

Le Morte’ D’ Arthur

George R.R. Martin - 5

Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast of Crows
A Dance with Dragons
 

Cormac McCarthy – 1

The Road

Frank McCourt - 1
Angela's Ashes

Sue Miller - 1
While I Was Gone

John Milton – 1

Paradise Lost

Willie Morris - 1
North Toward Home
 

Toni Morrison -1

Beloved
 

Robert Parris Moses -1

Radical Equations
 

Iris Murdoch - 1

A Fairly Honourable Defeat
 

Michael Perry – 1

Coop

Ayn Rand – 1
Atlas Shrugged
 

Jane Rhys -1

Wide Sargasso Sea
 

Ralph Russo - 2

Empire Falls
Nobody’s Fool
 

William Shakespeare – 9 (plays)

Romeo & Juiliet
Hamlet
Othello
A Midsummer’s Night Dream
The Merchant of Venice
Much Ado About Nothing
Richard II
Richard III
Henry V
 
Sidney Sheldon - 3
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Windmills of the Gods
The Doomsday Conspiracy
 
Hampton Sides - 3
Americana
Blood & Thunder
Hellhound on his Trail

M.L. Stedman - 1
The Light Between Oceans
 

John Steinbeck – 1

Of Mice and Men
 
Elizabeth Strout - 1
Olive Kitteridge
 
William Styron (editor) – 1
The Human Experience
 
Jonathan Swift – 1
Gulliver’s Travels
 
J.R. Tolkien - 5
The Hobbit
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
The Silmarillion
 

Leo Tolstoy – 1

The Death of Ivan Illych
 
Mark Twain - 2
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
 
Tad Williams - 5
The Dragonbone Chair
Stone of Farewell
To Green Angel Tower
City of Golden Shadow
River of Blue Fire
 
David Wroblewski – 1
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Anthologies - 1

The Pushcart Prize XI: Best of the Small Presses

Red's Soundtrack: "Faster than a Roller Coaster"

Tracks

“Mony, Mony” – Tommy James & the Shondells
“Everyday” – Buddy Holly
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” – The Tokens

Turning back the dial to the late 1980s, my memory clicks to a very few imprecise flashes. For instance, the summer of 1988 was hot in Northern Illinois. How hot was it? So hot that the skin of my chubby legs burned at every touch against the vinyl seats of our dung-brown family station wagon.

Plenty of times we piled into the station wagon after a long afternoon in the sun at Gartner Park where my brother had a baseball game, and maybe even I had a game of Tee Ball.  The backseat faced backward, and we could see the road below in at least one spot where the tailpipe had burned through the floorboard. At least that’s the story, and I am sticking to it.

After that very hot summer, I started kindergarten, and in those final years of the decade I transitioned from the standard bowl-cut haircut to a flat top. My 70s era hand-me-downs gradually gave way to the baggy pants and wild t-shirts, many featuring the bright fluorescent colors popularized in the early 90s.

While cassette tapes were the popular mode of music consumption and CDs were rumored as their eventual replacement, the cutting of my Rock’n’Roll teeth was predominately done with vinyl. We had a Fisher Price portable record player, and I basically had free reign over my parents’ sparse record collection comprised mostly of music from the 1950s & 60s.

Many afternoons I’d set the player with its tan body and orange turntable on the floor of the room just off our dining room. Growing up, the room was lovingly called the toy room, and I assumed for a long time that every house had a room with the same designation to go along with a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom and so on. For privacy, the door could be closed or slammed if the occasion called for such drama, and hanging on the top of the door was a NERF basketball hoop that might just have been the most used toy in the house. Although we barely ever used the foam nerf basketball that came with the hoop. Instead, we used a pink, blue and yellow stripped ball designed for use in a pool – it was little harder allowing for more possibilities ­– and I can’t say whether or not that ball was ever actually used in a pool. We simply were not much of watersport kind of family.

I’d spread the records out on the floor, pretending that I’d pick anything other than the usual playlist.

First on the spinner was the Greatest Hits from Tommy James & the Shondells. It’s a curious addition to my mom’s collection, since she has famously proclaimed “over and over” how she dislikes “Crimson & Clover” because it’s just “over and over.” Yet, it was there, and when I was 6 years old, it didn’t get any better than “Mony, Mony”. It was my sugar highs set to music. I have vague memories of a friend and me using toy tennis rackets for guitars, and pretending to play to it. I doubt I even had a concept of what air guitar was at that point, but I sure knew how to do it.

I also believe that being a growing fan of professional wrestling that “Mony, Mony” would be the perfect entrance song for when I launched my grappling career, if for no other reason I found it fast and loud, and it reminded me of the Ultimate Warrior’s frantic sprint to the ring.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a little more about this song and album. First, I never warmed to Billy Idol’s version of the song, even though it was likely getting radio play at the time. Same goes for Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The concept of covering songs already, in my mind, perfected was lost on me, and I think it tainted my view on covers for a long time into the future.

Second, I listened to this entire record a lot. I have inherited this album with others, and I can’t help be swept by a wave nostalgia whenever tunes like “Mirage” and “Sweet Cherry Wine” come on. The nostalgia, I find, settles in my knees, and I feel as if I could travel back a few decades in a couple steps.

Third, I spent a lot of time looking at the album cover and inside. This was full-on psychedelic era stuff, and, at 6, they were some freaky looking people, which contrasted the album waiting on deck. Buddy Holly looked like my brother. Well, not really, but he had the glasses, cut hair and the appearance of pretty much everyone around me.

His photo was in black and white, which I associated with him being dead more than anything else. It’s funny how the young mind works. There’s a sweetness to his sound that catches the ear, no matter the age, and “Everyday” caught mine the most – almost challenging “Mony, Mony” for top spot in my young heart. Plus, the lyrics included, “faster than a roller coaster,” which sent my imagination racing around loops and curves at blistering speeds.

Once through the Buddy Holly album, it was time to convert the player into 45 mode – a simple process of pulling up a piece in the middle of the turntable and clicking it into place. The 45 of choice was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Of course, changing the speeds of the table was a must on occasion to get the Chipmunk version of my favorite tunes.

Years later, this song popped up in Disney’s “The Lion King,” and looking back, I think there might have been someone spying on me. You see, it has become commonplace to use old pop music to sell things and put in movies. That is because they catch the attention of young ears just as much as they do old ones.

Of course, none of this was running through my head then, I just liked the noise. I still like the noise, and the simplicity of the memories resonates. Time moves on, and Buddy had it right, it moves “faster than a roller coaster.”

Red's Statement of Intent

I know that the page views here were always minimal, and I don’t know if Snake even has access to the site any longer, but things have changed for me over the past few months. For the last decade, I had an outlet for my writing with my profession. The last few years of said career, other responsibilities cut my writing down, and the writing I did was often rushed, and my ability to focus limited. At the beginning of December, I changed careers.

One of the reasons was that I hoped to start writing again. Well, it’s the end of March and I haven’t. I’ve tried with little to no success. I’d like to place blame, but the reality is that I just haven’t had any ideas that have sparked my imagination. It’s been disheartening, and I worry that at almost 34, like an athlete, my prime has passed.

I was never more productive creatively than when we updated this blog on a regular basis. So I hope by coming up with some ideas here, and posting them, it will, as they say, get the ball rolling. If it doesn’t, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

In order to do this, I needed something to write about. Which has been the problem. Initially, I was going to do a top 10 list of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, and I still might do that, but an old idea popped in my head.

For better or worse, we’ve all been conditioned by TV and movies to having music complement narrative. Many people, whether they realize it or not, establish a soundtrack for the narrative of their lives. I’ve certainly done that, whether intentionally on the spot, unintentionally by a song being on in the background, or retroactively by associating music with feelings, thoughts, periods of time and so on.

My intention is to create a series of posts – open-ended on how many – where I am going to attempt to create/detail the soundtrack to my life. My hope: is to listen to some music – which is good; come up with some creative ideas – which is better; perhaps conduct some personal therapy for what has been a sometimes difficult transition in my life.

So, I am setting back out on the path of the pen, and I hope somewhere out there is somebody willing read.

Red

The Witch and the Fool - Part 1

Note: I submitted a flash-fiction of this tale to a contest a while back and received a lot of positive feedback. I am now fleshing out the story a bit. The main character is in fact the witch that has appeared in the CD projects in the past. She was always one of the more fun characters to write, so I thought I'd do a little backstory tale on her. I realized no one looks at this, but it does my heart good to put something out. Work has burned me out, and I need something away from the job to engage me again.

The Witch and the Fool

I loved once.

It sounds absurd to say all these ages and worlds later, but it is true nonetheless. It might be absurd, but I’ll say it again and my heart shall rejoice in it. I loved once.

His name was Isad, a slave of some lord whose name has disappeared into some deep cavern in my ancient mind. They called my Isad a fool, and it is true that his mind was not sharp, but he made up for it in spades with heart. The kind of heart that the divine surely meant for all men, but only remained true in those without designs for power.

That was my first world, when the divine birthed me unto existence. The process was painful and bloody like any other birth, but I assure you that I sprang forth more from the loins of the cold, unforgiving earth than from any woman’s womb. For I am Matris, daughter of the Green, witch sister of the eternals and mother of the Dragon’s breath.

As if my birthing ripped the last of the power of the Green from that place, a bitter drought gripped the land. Skeletal trees stood barren of leaves and fruit. Rivers dried, crops failed and lush, fertile farms gave way to dust. Like the land, the hearts of man dried of love and pumped vengeance into willing veins.

Of course the fruits of that malice spawned my only true love, and for that, I give thanks. For love – even love doomed from the start – mends even the most scarred soul. It’s a salve for the wounds of loss, the lingering sores from encounters with the Dark and the ache of countless years.

 Let me say it again.

I loved once, and this is the tale of my love.

Red's book reviews

I'm at the halfway point of the year, and while I haven't read quite as much as usual, I've read a fair amount. Here's my general thoughts on this batch. 

A Feast of Crows – George R.R. Martin

Started the year with the fourth book in the Game of Thrones series and is really the first part of two books, if the afterword by Martin is to be believed. Actually, the afterword cleared up some thoughts that were running through my head. The first being is how could he completely leave Tyrion Lannister out of this book after the cliffhanger that ended the third book. Instead of returning to the driving story, Martin switched to a series of side characters. Having to start new with some, and sort of focus on a couple of the less intriguing characters, made it harder to stay interested through the 700 pages. Once I read the next book, hopefully it will tie the two parts together. 

The Wind Through the Keyhole – Stephen King

As it turns out, King had one more key on his belt concerning the Dark Tower series. Instead of picking up the story after the conclusion of the series, we get a side story that fits into the middle of the series. It's sort of like a hidden track on a CD. As the gang rides out a storm, the Gunslinger actually tells a story inside another story. I like the story is fine, but I didn't feel like the writing was quite as inspired or ambitious as King's attempts in the other Dark Tower book.  The twice told story sheds a bit of light on the Gunslinger's past. It was nice to return to the path, for a brief moment. I'll be interested to see what it reads like when placed within the order of the series. 

Hearts in Atlantis – Stephen King

This is four separate stories with various characters appearing in each. My initial interest in the book came from the fact that a character from the first story actually appears toward the end of the Dark Tower series. I wanted to see what was going on here to enrich my experience with the other series. The underlying theme of this book is the loss of innocence, chiefly being the loss America's innocence via the 1960s and the Vietnam conflict. At times, it becomes preachy, but I can't deny it made me think about the sad reality that we can never go back.

Into the Wild - John Krakauer

This is an investigative piece on Chris McCandless, an eccentric who in the early 1990s disappeared into the American West. Nearly a year later, his body was found in Alaska. The reporter delves into McCandless' journey, the reasons behind it and the overall question of how and why he lived and died. This became a movie a few years back, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. It's no secret that McCandless starved to death, although the cause of that starvation is speculated to be poisoning from seeds that he ate. I read this very quickly, as the journey and its motivation was intriguing. There's a romantic quality to his nomadic journey. The idea of trying to leave civilization and its trappings is appealing, to some degree. I admire the risk, and has left me thinking about how taking risks is part of living. 

• Well that is it so far this year. Like I said, not as productive of a reader this year as I have been in the past. Right now, I am onto a book called High Cotton, which is about growing cotton in the Mississippi Delta. 

Spirit in the Night: Third Installment

Note: I sort of hit a wall on this story, as to how to get it from start to resolution. I sort of feel like there isn't much movement forward here. 

G-Man

In the fire, flickers of his past danced between logs in mixed, confused dramas just the same as they did in G-Man’s corrupted mind. At the bottom was his earliest memory, back in the days when he was just Gordy LaHarpe, son of Gene and the late Vicki.

He was six, maybe seven. Fat. Always fat. Cheeks bursting out with both halves of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich jammed behind a big, gapping grin.  King Kong Bundy was on the tube squashing some no-name slub on the Sunday morning wrestles. He loved the wrestles. Bundy was fat like Gordy, but no one messed with him. Someday, no one would mess with Gordy either.

“Kick him, Bundy!” He shouted at the old black-and-white screen. Behind him Gene LaHarpe broke a snore, and Gordy covered his mouth.

Gene LaHarpe still wore the grease-and-soot stained uniform from his Saturday night overtime shift down at the forge of Lincoln Hardware. His big steel-toe boots were hiked up on the footstool in front of his chair. They were black from the forge and chipped in spots where sparks jumped from the forge for a hot kiss with the leather.

“Gordy?” The word came out slow like Gene’s tongue weighed a ton. “I’ll be God damned. What have I told you about waking me in my chair.”

“Sorry, sir.” Gordy spit out between the remaining hunks of sandwich in his mouth. “I got excited about Bundy, that’s all.”

“Bundy? Not that sissy wrestles,” Gene sat up, squinting at the screen, while holding his hand to his head. “That shit ain’t real. I’ve told you to stop watchin’ that a hundert times.”

A smarter boy would have left it at that, knowing the temper of Gene LaHarpe when he woke from a short slumber. Even then Gordy wasn’t smart. He wasn’t as dumb as he’d soon be, but he still wasn’t a sharp tool.

“It’s real, you just don’t understand it,” he said. “Look at Bundy, he just kicked that slub in the head, and he’s hurt real bad. Now he’s going squash him! Get him Bundy! When I get big, I’ll be just like Bundy. I’ll smash everyone. You’ll see.”

“I’ll see!” Gene shot up from the chair. He stood well over six feet and towered over his son. The same son who cost him his Vicki during a violent birth. “What the hell does that mean? You threatening me, boy.”

“No, I was just…” Gordy couldn’t get the words through the chunky peanut butter. Before he could start again, the size 13 boot of his father came down across his forehead. Somewhere a bell was ringing, and he actually turned his head to see if Bundy had finished off the slub. The images on the screen were all scrambled and a rainbow of colors spiraled out like a pinwheel. Before he could call out the colors like at school, something thumped against the back of his head, chewed up sandwiched splattered on the floor below him before everything went dark.

G-Man took a drag from his cigarette. He’d seen that vision in the flames a thousand times. A few logs up a better memory played out, and just like the first one, this vision was just for him and no one else.

Gene LaHarpe stood before the huge furnace door at the forge. Inside, the flames danced high, burning at an ungodly temperature to melt steel. He was feeding the flames during another late night shift alone. The factory was loud still, and that made it easy for G-Man – now a burly teenager with a noticeable dent in his forehead and a grudge against dear old daddy.

“It’ was so easy,” G-Man smiled.

Gene, as always, was so focused on his work that he never noticed his son Gordy sneak up from behind with a steel pipe in his hand. Gene’s skull squashed under the pipe. That one hit was all it really took. Gene stumbled forward toward the open furnace door, and G-Man shoved him all the way through. The screams were horrendous, but G-Man could not take his eyes away from the melting form of his father. He closed the furnace door before it was over, but from then on he was fascinated by the dance of flames.

“See papa, I got big like Bundy, and no one could mess with me. Especially you.”

There were half dozen logs on the fire with other memories, but they were scrambled just like the wrestles after his dad had kicked him. Besides, those were the two that he could always see.

An engine broke the quiet behind the shack, and he rose from one of the lawn chairs he had set up. The chairs were stolen from various decks around Lincoln. When times are tough, fingers get sticky. That’s what Killer Joe said, and G-Man liked that idea. He liked Joe well enough to put up with his mouth. He chose another log from the stack he had made for the night and tossed it on the fire.

“Time for a new memory.” He smiled, his tongue sticking out between the gaps between his front two teeth.

WILD BILLY

“What a shithole.” Billy said. Before him was the humble abode of the eloquent Killer Joe and the massive G-Man. The two-story country house had what looked to be the original wood as siding. Most of the exterior was exposed gray, but some spots had patches of old paint. Some white. Some green. The shingles were also wood, but stripped in spots. Across the left side, a blue tarp covered a caved in portion of the roof. The upstairs windows were busted out with plywood slats filling the gaps. The first floor windows were intact, each with four panes. The front door was red, likely stolen from some lumberyard.

“We’re working on it,” Joe said, holding Billy’s duffle bag from the pokey. “It’s not the penthouse, but it’s not the outhouse either.”

A shiver worked its way up Billy’s spine. His uncle had called his guestroom the penthouse. Billy had spent two summers at his uncle’s farm the next county over when he was 10 and 11. He arrived the first day, his fat uncle wearing bibs and a gray T-shirt. The first two weeks had been about work, cleaning up pig shit and lifting bales of hay. He hated the work, but by the end of the third week, he would have cleaned every pen with his tongue instead of the real reason his uncle had asked his sister for her troublesome son for the summer.

It was a damp morning, that’s all he could remember. He entered the kitchen, taking off his muck boots. His uncle sat at the table, a stack of bills sitting on the table.

“Listen, bub,” His uncle opened a beer bottle using the edge of the table. “I’ve got a friend waiting for you up in the penthouse.”

“What for?”

Before he could flinch, his uncle’s hand was around his throat. He could smell the pig shit under the man’s fingernails. Quickly the world at the edge of his vision started to turn dark.

“Bub, you mine while you under my roof. Now, when I let you go, you best head up to the penthouse and see my friend. He’ll tell you what to do, and you’ll do it. Do you understand me?”

He remembered standing at the bottom of the rickety stairs with the loose banister, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting down from above, and it seemed real dark. He remembered screaming and crying and hating and hating and hating.

“Let’s do this.”

“What?”

“Come on, man. G-Man has the fire going. Let’s go.”

Billy slipped a cigarette between his lips, noticing for the first time the plume of smoke rising from behind the shack.