by Norman Belanger

On a Wednesday, Fiona asks me to meet her out for drinks at West Side, but it’s raining in that gloomy blue evening hour, and I’ve already had a couple glasses of wine. The idea of putting on clothes after the comfort of my old warm flannel robe is too terrible to contemplate.

I beg off.  “I think I’ll pass,” I say.

“Dylan’s tending bar,” she whispers into the phone.

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” I say. 

Dylan is the blindingly beautiful new bartender. For the past several weeks, Fiona and I have been trying to figure out which team he plays for. She’s convinced he’s straight and totally into her. I, on the other hand, am certain the boy is gay. He wears that rockabilly dirtbag pompadour and long side burns, with just a touch of irony that cannot be heterosexual. His distressed jeans and biker boots remind me more of the Ramrod back room than Harley Davidson.

We both have a little crush on him, which over time has developed into a full on competition. She’s always showing off her boobs in these tops that look like ace bandages, and flirting with him like crazy, all wiggles and giggles and faces she thinks are sexy. I flirt too, my own version of flirting.  I mumble a few jokes he doesn’t get and laugh nervously whenever he looks at me. Yes, he flirts back, with both of us, but he makes love to everyone with equal poise and a democratic dexterity. He works the room, an acrobat, oozing charm. He’s a bartender. Of course he’s going to smile and in general be quite attractive. Which he is. The boy is probably about 27, that zenith year of a man’s beauty, young but not too young. Fiona has this rule that the youngest age you can date without being cheesy or gross is half your age plus seven years, so darling Dylan is well in play. Last spring Fiona turned 40, though we aren’t allowed to discuss it, and I am still a tender 35. Dylan’s charms are numerous: he has that skin that is firm and smooth and luminous in the amber bar lights, and when he laughs it’s the sound of Apollo’s chariot riding across a bright sky. He is stunning. And we both are smitten with him.

When I get there, she’s sitting in her spot in the corner, where she can watch the door and eye herself in the big mirror behind the bar, a strategic perch where she can easily survey the room while being seen by every one who walks in the place. And who would not notice the knockout auburn brunette poured into a cherry red dress that is cut to reveal arms, and shoulders, and ample chest, all covered artfully in floral tattoos? Her V neck top is cut so deep I can practically see her cervix.    

“Aren’t you afraid of  catching pneumonia?” I say.

“Go fuck yourself, Sweetheart” she says kissing me on the cheek. She makes a theatrical sniff, like Lady Astor smelling Brussells sprouts. “New aftershave?” she says.

“Just a clove of garlic behind each ear,” I hiss back. “To ward off vampires.” I hand my dripping umbrella and battered Burbury to the hostess, and take my seat.

“I hate to tell you bad news” Fiona says in a tone that belies the opposite,  “ but dear Dylan can’t take his eyes off my tits. I think I may have sewn up our little grudge match. The boy wants me.”

“We’ll see about that” I say.

When Dylan sees me he winks and nods. “Hey handsome,” he says,  “ what can I get you on this cold and rainy hump night?” He leans against the bar in a way that makes his triceps pop becomingly through his shredded T shirt. I can practically hear Fiona’s teeth grinding.

I stutter out: “Martini. Kettle One vodka. Extra olives”.

“You like it really dirty, don’t you?” he asks

“Yes,” I peep.

“Be careful sweetie” Fiona chimes in, nudging me hard. “You know how too much salt makes you bloat up.” Dylan laughs, and she laughs, and even her cleavage seems to laugh. While he’s shaking up my drink we both watch the play of his sinewy arms.

“Jesus, that’s beautiful” she sighs.

Dylan places my brimming cocktail down with a flourish, it shimmers with an icy surface tension. “I hope I measured up,” he says.  I lean in to take that first tentative sip. It’s nectar. What more proof do I need of his love than this most perfect work of his art? Clearly, it’s me he wants.

We have a few rounds, it’s all a pleasant blur, and before we know it, Dylan has all our dollars in his ripped pockets, the lights are dimmed, and she and I are out again in the chilly damp night.

“At least it stopped raining, “ Fiona says, wrapping her faux leopard fur coat around her. “He’s totally hot for me” she says.

“No way” 

We argue the whole way down her street, each of us parsing every word and weighing every gesture that would show definitively where Dylan’s heart lay. Then she stops dead in her tracks.

“What if the mother lover is Bi?” she says. “That would explain everything!” she laughs.

“What?”

“If he’s bi, we wouldn’t have to compete anymore. We might even join forces! We can divide him up like birthday cake, carve him up slice by sweet delicious slice. If we play our cards right, we can both have him! We’ll work out some kind of an arrangement.”

“Sort of a Monday Wednesday Friday type thing? Alternating weekends?”

“Mmm something like that, we’ll hammer out the details eventually.”

We both laugh at the silliness of it, but maybe we laugh just a little too much. Under the bare dripping trees her eyes gleam like a feral cat in the pale winter moonlight. We stand there, toe to booted toe, both knowing that we would not be banding together in this conquest anytime soon, both knowing that we would fight each other tooth and nail to get him, every one for him, or her, self. There would be no arrangement, no agreement, no birthday cake to be shared.

In the end, only one of us would win Dylan’s dubious affections, I can’t say who, because I promised I wouldn’t. Suffice to say, it would be an ill advised coupling, an anticlimactic night of drunken fumbling, followed by a trip to the clinic and a ten day course of antibiotics for the lucky one.

The event would almost ruin our friendship, but eventually we did in fact join forces, promised each other never to fight over a man, and we never went back to West Side again.

Norman Belanger is a nurse by profession and a writer by hobby. "I enjoy writing, and find humor the best counterbalance to a serious, often stressful world."

by Robert Boucheron

LOIS WATCHED a bead of sweat form on Mark’s forehead as he expounded on a topic about which she knew nothing. The droplet swelled, grew heavy, and at last trickled down his cheek, leaving a bright trail.

“. . . without some internal structure to manage decision-making, the group inevitably ...”

He looked like he was weeping and didn’t know it. The way some people tap a foot, or adjust their glasses, or twitch.

“. . . doesn’t matter what the issue is or the personalities involved. It’s about size, the number of people, the rate of growth . . .”

Another bead of sweat gathered strength on his forehead. Lois was fascinated. Without warning, the drop raced down his other cheek, then hung from his chin.

“. . . in villages that outgrow the local food supply. If you ask them why, they talk about the will of the gods, or some petty dispute that goes back generations.”

Despite the heat, they were sitting at an outdoor café, on spindly metal chairs at a round table. They were in the shade of a building, on a pedestrian plaza. There was no traffic to shout over, but also no movement in the scene. And no breeze. Lois dangled an arm. The metal tubing of the chair, which ought to be cool, was warm to the touch. She sipped iced tea through a straw. The ice was melting.

Mark was so intent on developing his argument that he forgot to drink his beer. The golden liquid was losing its fizz, going flat. Warm beer was disgusting. Lois preferred cocktails, especially ones colored green or pink, with names that evoked tropical islands. Trade winds. Coral reefs and turquoise waters.

“They take sides, almost at random, to either side of the aisle in a church or a meeting hall.”

The beer glass was wet with condensation. Mark’s face was dripping. Lois, however, was in her element. She liked hot weather, felt more alert, like a lizard that comes alive in the noonday sun. Thin, with dark hair and a medium complexion, she could pass for Mediterranean. Except that she lacked intensity or passion or whatever it is that makes people burn inside. I am an observer, she thought. A collector of impressions.

Mark had reddish hair, thick and curly. It was reddish all over, Lois was pleased to discover. He had thick arms and legs and a thick torso. He was full and fleshy. Lois liked meat. A nice face, finely drawn. Maybe he would run to fat when he got older, maybe not. He was active, when he wasn’t working at a desk. He bicycled, hiked, rowed and sailed. He liked water, swam well. He was young, only twenty-four. Lois had a few years on him. She declined to say how many.

“. . . splits in two, like a cell undergoing mitosis.”  He smiled—an infectious, sunny smile, with sweat streaming down his face. Like tears of joy?

“And here’s the wonderful part. The half is immediately a whole. It grows, acquires new members—if it’s healthy, anyway—develops complexity . . .”

This was the climax. Lois had only a faint idea of what he just said. She was a poor listener, but she followed the emotional arc. Mark did not require an interactive audience. Passive acceptance was okay. He was a born lecturer. He would be terrific on video.

As a reward, or grateful to discover it was still there on the table, Mark seized the glass of beer and poured most of it into his mouth. Lois watched the sudsy slime trickle down the side of the glass. Mark wiped his face with a paper napkin, which turned to pulp. Lois swallowed involuntarily, looked at her iced tea, and shivered.

“It’s too hot to think,” he said. “Why did we come out here?  Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“No, I’m fine. Sit still, slow down, and let the blood settle.”

“Am I red in the face?”

“Rosy, maybe. Florid.”

“So, do I get the job? Assistant adjunct, one-year appointment, meager salary, no benefits, with option to renew?”

“They would be lucky to get you, mad to turn you down.”

"Waiting is such a drag. The suspense.”

“That’s why we left the apartment. The walls were closing in, you said. A breath of air, a cool drink. We got one out of two.”

“You don’t mind if I ramble on?”  The smile was clouded by doubt. Brains and brawn, that’s what the dating service promised, and for once they underst ated. Yet Mark had moments of insecurity. This was her cue.

“Mind?”  Lois sat up. “Your voice is music to my ears. It is what I live for.”

​

Robert Boucheron is an architect in Charlottesville, Virginia, website boucheronarch.com. He writes on housing, home improvement, gardens, communities, and electric motorcycles. His fiction and nonfiction appear in Cerise Press, Cossack Review, Dark Matter, Echo, Mouse Tales Press, Niche, Northern Virginia, Piedmont Virginian, Prime Number, Real Estate Weekly, Rider, Streetlight, Talking Writing, 34th Parallel and Virginia Business. (Republished from Fall 2012 issue)

by Craig Grafton

She hated this job. She was going to be a psychiatrist but somehow that didn’t happen. She ended up with a degree in social work and now worked here at the prison, one of her duties being reading letters that the prisoners wrote. She was their censor and all letters must meet her approval before being mailed or after being received.

The inmates weren’t total dummies. They learned fast what they could or could not say in a letter or put better, what they could get away with. Thus their letters followed a formula and became pretty much generic, boring, repetitious.

Looking for hidden message, picking up on innuendos, finding the unobvious in the obvious, psychoanalyzing them, that was the fun part, though not an official part, of her job. This is how she entertained herself, practiced her own brand of psychiatry, just to relieve the boredom. 

Now in front of her she read the file of a twenty year old young man. She glanced at his file. Tested out  academically at the eighth grade level, no high school degree, I.Q. a little below 100. Plead to theft to be put on probation, given a chance to remove this stain on his life. Messed it up  because as usual he couldn't or wouldn’t follow the probation rules. Given another chance. Sent to a detention center facility where he went to his job during the day, locked down at night and weekends. Released after four months. Blew it again, two DUIS, two driving without license, no insurance, speeding etc. etc. Probation revoked. Sentenced five years on original theft charge. One of these people that get too many last chances, who can’t control their impulses. They’re best locked up for their own and the safety of others. Doctors put him on meds, took him off. They had no effect. Here was another human being that can’t be fixed. Prison is where he belonged.

This was his first letter. He was telling his parents that he had already figured it out when he would get out on parole if he behaved here. They all thought like that, always calculating, always scheming, always looking to the future. Let them do it. These were the things that kept them in line. Most could behave in the structured life of prison, few could survive in the chaos of the real world. So many of them came back.

She read on. The usual, how sorry he was. How he knew that he had messed up his life and let everyone down. Oh he was as remorseful, just as remorseful as the next guy . Probably a fellow inmate coached him, told him what the prison officials liked to see in the letters.

Then came his requests. Do this for me please, tell so and so for me this or that, have so and so write me, call so and so for me. Set up an e-mail prison account so we can write each other.  Mail me this or that thing knowing full well that no personal items, clothing, momentos, etc. could be sent him.

Next came the typical complaints. This place sucks. The food sucks. It’s too hot, too cold, too drafty. Have to take these stupid classes. The psychiatrist and my counselor don’t understand me. It’s not fair. She’d read this a thousand times before.

He was purposely vague on the next topic as to how some of his privileges were revoked for minor screw ups as he called them. They weren’t his fault of course. These were the little things that they tried to pull and always were always caught doing, yet these dummies kept trying.

Then he, like the others always do, ended with a closing spiel about how much they loved and missed everyone and to have everyone pray for him. This was the buildup to asking for money to be put money in an account account for him so that he can buy writing paper, envelopes and stamps. If he got it, he would be like the rest and use most of  it for candy, chips, pop.

The letter ran true to form but some particular words caught her attention. This was the unofficial fun part of her job. The first one was  ‘dieseases’ not diseases. I was tested and had no dieseases he wrote his folks. That is he meant that he had no sextually transmitted diseases or AIDS. Diseases that you could die from i.e. dieseases. Subconscious speaking or the spelling of an illiterate. What would Freud say?

The second was ‘rueined.’  I have ‘rueined’ my life said his letter. Was this a combination of rue and ruin?  He was rueing over his ruined life. Perhaps subconsciously he meant both in the one word. In reality he probably didn’t even know what the word rue meant.

The third was counselor He had spelled it consoler. He had talked to his ‘consoler.’ His consoler consoled him. Funny.

The last one really cracked her up, reincarcenation, reincarceration or reincarnation, probably both. Somehow he was promising to be reborn and reform and not come back as a criminal again. This time she chuckled out loud.

How would Freud would interpret all this?  No one would dare question his interpretation. That old man had his genius routine down pat, acting and looking the part. Never would he have confirmed her interpretation, the obvious, that this was the incoherent ramblings of an illiterate, genetically doomed individual and not the subconscious speaking.

She wasn’t being paid to analyze just to see that the letters followed prison guidelines, which this one did. She wasn’t going to mention any of this to the prison psychiatrist. Why bother, she’d get mad about her trying to practice psychiatry without a license and tell her to stick to her job. She’d let it go.

Maybe this job wasn’t so bad after all. One could enjoy it if one knew how. What would Freud say about that?

​

Craig Grafton is a retired attorney whose latest stories appear in Romance Magazine and Clever Magazine. (See his story "Nutland" in Zodiac's Summer/Fall 2015 issue.)

by Charles Hayes

Grey bars and concrete stacked afar, vanishing points of slowly disappearing souls I can feel. Slamming steel at my back brings my stomach high, and takes a bite of my shirt to welcome me. No canteen for a month the shirt will cost, a bill that must be paid.

A shadowed hole along the line, my all and all for thirty months, comes closer quick. Hearing the snarl of steel I look to find, the grey bars closed, my world to be. Along the catwalk my keepers flee, the echo of their laughter left for me. Unseen voices sound without, mixed with laughter of their own, telling me to the canteen I need not go, new cherries can bargain for their needs. Hearing this I sink lower still, just another welcome dripping down. Nerves already raw, without a stitch from me, the cushion for my frame begins a tic.

To wind up here is hard to realize, though the judge’s words were clear. Learn the lessons of this place, a better man to be. His power lit, gavel down and punitive pleasure well be robed, tough on crime he is, everybody knows. Rising from the bench, through a door he goes, his duty done, a career ahead, and tables laid just so.

To the local clinks I have been, pinched from the bar I leaned upon, by local screws, their quota filled. Intoxication my crime to charge, and obstruction for bringing them off their cot, but how did I ever wind up here.        

Once on a leave before the Nam, I thought it would be sweet. But drunk I did become, and mid-night chin-ups on the school swings, had the screws called forth. My buddy they let go, and told to stay away from me. A mother’s son they took to jail, for her in the morn to retrieve, a home town good-bye before I took their war. Class reunions wonder still, why I never come despite the pleas, and say my empathy is shot. But how did I ever wind up here.

Long haired and a beard to stretch, he begged for half my weed and waved a ten. I gave it over owed to be, maybe a brother I would find. But my shirt pocket for the ten, he did stick it anyway. Later I came to see that weed that was pinched from me, on the table across the way, where the smiles of the judge often homed. And the brother I wanted to be, neatly uniformed and spanking clean was he. His teeth, like a paste buy me ad, to the judge he often flashed.

That is how I got here. Nary a scarf across her eye, the lady boldly viewed her scales, and leaned her way of ought, instead of balance let it be. The gavel down, the price to pay, all the pockets picked, it has been a day. Get by I will or not for threadbare my pockets are, but when you come to better me a hair you will not find. Surprised you can not be, it happens a lot.

​

Charles is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. His writing interests centers on the stripped down stories of those recognized as on the fringe of their culture. Asian culture, its unique facets, and its intersection with general American culture is of particular interest. As are the mountain cultures of Appalachia. (Ed. note:  Charles is one of our favorite contributors. Look for his good work above, below, and archived in other issues.)

by Charles Hayes

I hadn’t seen Roger Pines for more than twenty years when I was called to his death bed. We had been in the Vietnam War together and had come from the same small town atop one of the mountains of the Southern Appalachians. Roger became a hero during the war when he received the Silver Star for carrying the body of his platoon commander through heavy fire to safety. That allowed him to return home with a top job waiting in the mining industry. As for me, after the war, I let the government send me through the University then moved up North to work in the Boston area. Roger and I lost touch after that. Then, out of the blue, I received a call from his brother telling me that Roger was dying of cancer and wanted to see me before passing on.

I am called back by the creak of the old timbers as I enter the room where we used to happily plan our trout fishing trips. But, adjusting to the new light and its atmosphere, my fond memories are short lived. Bathed by the rays of sunlight filtering through the window curtains, Roger lies before me feebly toying with a tiny box atop his chest. Dust motes, like little parts of his spirit anxious to be on their way, hover in the rays of sunlight that cover him. And his vivid blue eyes, set in an ashen face, startle me as he turns to.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t make it,” he says. “Thank you for coming, Ed.”

Pulling over an old cane backed chair, I sit by my friend and do the best I can to not show how nervous I am.

“I am honored that you thought of me, Roger. We go back a ways, don’t we?”

Roger’s eyes seem to inherit an even brighter burst of blue as he gazes to the sunlight and slides the tiny box towards me.

“I wish we could roll a fly over Glade Creek one more time,” he says. “That was really something else. But there is no time now. I need you to do something for me, Ed.”

“Sure, Roger, if I can.”

Tapping the box with his finger, Roger lets me know that it might not be easy.

“Oh, you can, Ed. You may not want to but you can. Take this medal and place it on the grave of Lieutenant William Stevens. He is at Arlington. The grave address is noted inside the box. They’ll show you where.”

William Stevens was the platoon commander that Roger carried out of the bush in Vietnam.

“Ok buddy,” I say. “Consider it done.”

A shadow seems to cross Roger’s face as just outside the window a bird calls.

“I killed him, Ed.”

     Thinking how hard it must be to die and what it must do to one’s mind, I try to put some meaning to his words.

“You did your best, Roger. It wasn’t your fault.”

Looking to the window as if his next words are written there, Roger continues.

“You don’t get it, Ed. You know what a glory hound he was. Half of our platoon was gone from his pushes. The three of us left in my squad drew straws. I got the short one and shot him during that last firefight.”

Stunned at first, I come to think about the limp that I carry and how it got to be. The waste of it all. There had been angry comments about our casualties. And though not unheard of, I never dreamed that anything would ever come of them.

Lifting the Silver Star box with a trembling hand, Roger holds it toward me and locks me with one of the hardest looks that I have ever seen. It is then that I realize Death has blue eyes.

“Go on, take it,” he says. “Stevens was a big fan of the Silver Star, always talking about how he would like to have one. Give it to him, Ed.”

Feeling numb to the core and knowing no words for such a situation I accept the Silver Star and slip it in my jacket pocket.

Silently watching me take this load, Roger loses the fire in his eyes as a look of exhaustion fills them. Turning away, he lifts his hand, palm up. Taking it, I watch a small smile cross his face as he releases me with words that seem to float from a Netherworld.

“Thank you, Ed. Now you know. The rest is between me and my maker.”

So many markers. Standing here at Lt. William Stevens’ spot, like an odd being among those no more, I remember the words of a Persian poet: “among the guests star scattered on the grass.” Only the poet’s drift was one of cheer. This place brings me down, too far askew. A milky way of dead. Of mostly young. In my face, all these dead…….trying to change what was someplace. Or was in someone else’s mind. My leg hurts as I remember Roger’s words, “you may not want to but you can.” Pulling the medal and the little ribbon attached to it from its box, I remember my own purple heart medal and how, when the alcohol wouldn’t kill the pain, I threw it into the Charles River. That pain is not as bad now but there is another kind of pain that pulls at me…...standing here among these dead. I can not carry the genre of this trinket to the dead. I have no will to do it. Nada!

Getting back to my rental car, I leave the cemetery and pull over along the Potomac River thinking that I am done with this sad happening. Returning the Silver Star and its ribbon to their little white box, I give them a fling and watch the frothy grey current take them down with the rest.

​

Charles is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. His writing interests centers on the stripped down stories of those recognized as on the fringe of their culture. Asian culture, its unique facets, and its intersection with general American culture is of particular interest. As are the mountain cultures of Appalachia. (Ed. note: Charles is one of our favorite contributors. Find his good work above and archived in other issues.)

by Michael C. Keith

Never make predictions,

especially about the future.

– Casey Stengel

​

Much to his amazement as well as bafflement Will Carpenter found that he could make a certain type of dire prediction. The 82 year-old member of the Hornsby, Idaho, senior center appeared to possess the dubious ability to forecast when a person would die. While he could not provide any specifics surrounding a person’s demise, Will could cite the actual day of death. Indeed, he’d done so on three occasions just over the past year.

When numbers first appeared over a friend’s head, Will thought that perhaps he was having one of his silent migraines. In the past he’d seen flashing lights that distorted objects before him. But this was different––he’d never seen numbers just dangling in mid-air. When a second elderly friend––who’d also had figures floating above him––died, Will connected the dots and realized the digits formed the date that an individual would pass.

With some reluctance, Will told his best friend, Guy La Pierre, about his disturbing visions, hoping he’d keep them to himself.

“That’s pretty crazy, Willy. You have your eyes checked? Didn’t you say you had some problems seeing things a while back.”

“Yeah, I did. The doc told me I have these migraines that mess up my sight, but this is different. No flashing lights . . . just clear numbers hanging over people’s heads. I figured out what they are, too. They’re dates . . . the day, month, and year when the person standing or sitting under them is going to die. It’s happened a few times now, Guy. Saw them before Karen died and again a week before Craig had his heart attack.”

“Now, that’s got to be a figment of your imagination, Willy, You should get them old peepers checked out again. You never know what could be causing those, ah . . . hallucinations. Could be serious.”

“They’re not hallucinations, Guy. I see what I see and then something actually happens. I’m worried because just yesterday I saw numbers over Alex’s head.”  

“Alex Boswell? What was the date?”

“The numbers were 9/17/15.”

“Well, that’s just a week or so away. Let’s see if what you’re saying holds up. Not long to wait.”

“Should we tell poor Alex?”

“What? Tell him you’ve seen the date that he’s going to croak dangling over his head. Shoot, Willy, he’s 91! You tell him that and he’ll surely die.”

Will agonized over a possible course of action but in the end decided that Guy was right; there was little he could do. What was going to happen was simply going to happen . . . Then, sure enough, on the 17th of September, Alex’s daughter found her father dead in his recliner.

Since Guy was bad at keeping secrets, it wasn’t long before rumors spread about Will’s disconcerting talent. After having correctly predicted Alex’s demise, most residents of Hornsby steered clear of him, fearing he might reveal their final day. To his surprise and chagrin, the owner of the town’s dry goods store, Mary Harding––a longtime friend––asked if he might determine her expiration date. At first he baulked at the very idea but then agreed to come see her because of her unrelenting insistence.

When Will entered Mary’s store the next day, young Simon Burwell was there. For some reason he would never understand, Will found himself blurting out the set of numbers he saw suspended near where the man stood.

“10/21/2015!”

“What was that?” inquired Simon, taken aback.

And Will immediately realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

“Nothing . . . nothing at all. I was just . . . “

“Did you predict when I would die, like they say you can?” asked Simon, now with a smug grin on his face.

No . . . not really. I mean . . .”

“Well, that’s just a bunch of crap anyway. Easy to predict when them old folks are gonna’ cork off. Hell, anyone look at them could tell they were about to kick the bucket. You just got lucky . . . or you put some poison in their mush.”

“My mind was just drifting, sorry,” said Will, nervously.

“Don’t let it drift too far. Might find yourself running over one of them wrinkled up ladies you fancy at that old fart center,” said Simon, giving Will a sideways glance as he left the store.

“Now, what was all that about, Will? Did you see his death numbers?” asked Mary.

“Well, yes . . . I mean I may have. Not sure, really,” replied Will. “So why in the heck do you want to know when you’re done with it all, Mary?”

“Haven’t been feeling all that chipper lately and figured I might as well know for sure so I can get this place in order. Don’t want my kids to have to clean it up after me.”

Will looked above her head and took a couple steps back. “Think you’re out of luck, Mary. I don’t see a thing.”

“C’mon, Will. Look again. You saw them other folks’ dates.”

“Yeah, but, sorry, just don’t see any numbers for you. Could be you’re going to live forever, so you don’t have to tidy up.”

“Maybe the numbers you saw near Simon were mine. Could have been meant for me instead of him.”

“No, I don’t think so. If they were for anybody, they probably were meant for him. Sorry, Mary.”

“Well, could you come back in a few days? Maybe the date will pop up then.”

“Sure, Mary, I can do that.”

Will left the store and headed home. The thought that the numbers he saw at Mary’s store might have been Simon’s troubled him.

And they had begun to trouble Simon as well. At first he paid little attention to his encounter with Will, but after a while he began to wonder if there was anything to what he’d heard about the old man being able to predict when someone would die. As his initial concern grew, he began to fixate on the idea that 10/21/15 was to be his final day on Earth.

That’s only 3 weeks from now. Could be dead then. Jesus, what if . . .? thought Simon, gulping at a beer as he sat on the steps of his trailer. Maybe I can do something with the time I have left. Right some wrongs.

Over the next couple of weeks, Simon reviewed the sad path of his life and became a changed man. He gave his ex-wife the back alimony and child support he owed her, paid his long overdue bar bill, and cleaned up the rubbish that had accrued around his ancient Winnebago.

When 10/21/15 arrived he drank himself into a stupor and blacked out. When he came to, it was early the next day.

“Lordy me, I’m still alive!” he bellowed joyfully. But then he realized he was penniless as the result of all his recent good deeds. “Shit!!!!” he growled, and then heaved up on his blanket.

Meanwhile, a customer of Mary’s dry goods store was surprised to find it still closed a good hour after it normally opened. She called Mary’s son, Calvin, to see what had happened. Just twenty minutes later Calvin found his mother lying on the floor behind her store’s cash register with no pulse.

That morning Will felt that what little energy his old body still possessed had seemed to drain away. He had all he could do to lift himself from his bed. Sitting on its edge, he caught his image in the bedroom mirror. And there above his reflection appeared the numbers 10/22/15.

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Okay . . .”

He lay back on his bed, closed his eyes, and waited.

​

Michael C. Keith teaches college and writes fiction. www.michaelckeith.com.

by Len Kuntz

The day my brother comes home from prison there is a celebration, and even though I haven’t read the Bible in years, I can’t help thinking of the prodigal son story.

He’s easy with a laugh and quick with a drink. It’s a sizzling day in the backyard, burgers and dogs on the grill, watermelon split into four husks, its meat the color of pink lemonade.

There are twenty of us. Gnarls Barkley, my brother’s favorite band before he went in, keeps singing, “You make me craaa-zeeey.”

My girlfriend wanted to be here. “I’ve never met a murderer before,” she said. But I told her another time. 

People mob my brother like a swath of human gnats. You’d think he was a war hero. The evidence that exonerated him was sketchy, but my parents have the money for good lawyers, and they made his release happen.

Eight years he’d been locked up. He looks less dangerous, not neutered necessarily, but calm, at peace.

What people didn’t know because I never told them, and because my brother ditched the magazines after he learned I’d discovered them, is that my brother had a hardcore bondage fetish. Really dark stuff. 

So is it a coincidence that the girl was found, legs and feet bound, a gag in her mouth? Who’s to know for sure about anything?

My brother keeps eyeing me even as he nods or cooperates with a joke by chuckling. He hasn’t lost his gift for multitasking.

Mom comes over. “What’s your deal?”

“My deal?”

“Everyone’s having a great time and you’re over here sulking in the shade.”

“It’s cooler in the shade.”

“Screw you.” 

Screw, not fuck. Mom‘s polite that way.

After the party winds down, I find myself alone with my brother. We’re folding up the collapsible tables.

“You’re a quiet little shit,” he says to me.

“Apparently I am.”

“You ain’t got nothing to say?” He slams the metal legs against the table top.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty to say, just not now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I join his stare. When we were young, before the thing happened, we’d have staring contests to see who’d blink first. This time I let him win.

When I try to walk away, he grabs me by the shoulder and we go at it, wrestling, throwing punches, kicking, scratching, whatever it takes to maim and hurt. We’re stopped when Dad flings me off and I slam my head on the protruding root of our old maple tree.

“It’s too late to ruin things,” Dad says, a confident scowl on his face. “The party’s already over.”

I stand up and stagger away, unsteady though I haven’t had a single drink.

Days pass.  Months. 

The next girl could be a twin of the other. Same red hair and pale skin. Bound and gagged and murdered.

Mom and Dad still believe my brother is innocent. They hire more lawyers. I hear Dad say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

​

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans.  His work appears widely in print and online journals.  His story collection, "The Dark Sunshine," debuted from Connotation Press in 2014.  You can also find him at lenkuntz.BlogSpot.com.

by Bill Vernon

Dr. Suzanne Carter has lectured the young man during class sessions, written helpful and encouraging notes on his first three compositions, asked for revisions rather than awarding low grades, but nothing has worked. The student has also missed all three appointments for consultations with her teaching assistant. There is a history, in other words there are some facts the Professor knows when he does show up for an appointment with the professor herself.

“Please,” she says, indicating a chair.

He sprawls in it, crossing his ankles, almost becoming prone. A cigarette lies above his right ear. A ring with a diamond teardrop suspended from it dangles from the lobe. His black hair modulates like a rainbow with stripes of purple, red, yellow, then white.

She asks what she can do to help his performance improve, and he says, “Nothin’.”

She says he’s not achieving college-level work, and he shrugs.

“Would a tutor help?”

“If he writes the stuff for me.”

“Can’t you do the work?”

“I did do it.”

“I mean acceptably. Do you want to fail?

He shrugs, which she interprets, “I don’t care.”

“It is true that you’ve turned in every assignment. That suggests you want to learn. Or at least that you want to pass.”

“So....”

“So you have earned some credit for that effort,” she finishes for him. “But frankly, the work is too vague, too disordered. You have to get better control.” In fact, she thinks, it is incoherent, nearly inarticulate. “Did you bring it? I’ll show you.”

“No.” He won’t look at her now.

Then she sees the problem. Aha! It’s attitude, not academic ability.

“Excuse me.” She telephones Shirley Atkins, who can see him now. Just before hanging up, the Professor says, “Good. I’ll send him right over.”

“Where?” he asks, suddenly staring at her.

She writes down the name, office and phone numbers, and hands the student the stick-um piece of paper. 

He glances at it. “Who’s this?”

“A counselor. Her help will cost you nothing, and she is very good. Has helped many of my students in the past. A very nice and competent person.”

“What kinda counselor?” He sits up straight and glares at her.

“Personal. Psychological. Just try her. Maybe she will be of benefit. You can arrange sessions at your own convenience and at no charge, as I said before. Cost is covered by your student registration fee.”

“A psychologist?!” His face goes from red to ashen.

Then he moves so fast she can’t understand what is taking place. He jumps up, slams her office door shut, comes around her desk, grabs her throat, yanks her to her feet. She goes almost immediately into shock and is hardly aware of his fists, pounding her face.

​

Bill Vernon served in the United States Marine Corps, studied English literature, then taught it. Writing is his therapy, along with exercising outdoors and doing international folkdances. His poems, stories and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, and Five Star Mysteries published his novel OLD TOWN in 2005. (Republished from Summer/Fall 2015 issue)