Sorry, Wrong Number

“Why did you hang up on me?” says a woman caller. Her voice sounds familiar. And angry.

     “I didn’t hang up on you,” I say. It’s an automatic denial. A reflex.

     “Don’t treat me like I’m dumb! I’m not that dumb!” she says and I suddenly realize she sounds like my great-grandmother Judith, only meaner.

     The thing is, Granny Judy died twenty-two years ago. So it’s probably not her.

     “I’m sorry. I think you have the wrong number,” I say, which is true.

     “I told you not to treat me like I’m dumb!”

     “Sorry,” I say and hang up on her, sort of again.

     I think, Boy, the real guy’s going to get an earful now!

Melting Sugar Shrieks in Bitterzoet Magazine!

 

My story, Melting Sugar Shrieks is in the new issue of...

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Haffenreffer and the Creative Clue

We’re sitting on her front porch, drinking skunked Haffenreffer  she’d picked up somewhere. I didn’t think they even made it anymore. We have six of the awful things on ice in the Styrofoam cooler between us.

     Then she drops this on me: “I think the chick next door got kidnapped. Maybe even murdered...”

     “Yeah?” I say in a bored tone. “What makes you think so?”

     “I found a sketch of her in the trash. In the sketch, she looks kidnapped.”

     “How do you look kidnapped? And what would a sketch of her be doing in your trash?”

     She looks at me like I’m stupid. “It wasn’t in my trash, dummy. It was in her trash.”

     “You were looking through her trash,” I say as a flat statement of fact.

     “It was on the curb.”

     “That doesn’t make it right.”

     “Look, forget about how I found it. That’s not the important thing. The fact that she looks kidnapped is what’s important here. Try to focus.”

     I let out a long breath. “Again, how do you look kidnapped?”

      She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of copy paper. “Like this. Check it out.” She unfolds it and hands it to me. It looks like this:

     I recognize the face as belonging to her next door neighbor, Miranda.

     “See? She’s wearing a gag,” she points out.

     I hand her back the paper. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

     “What are you blind?”

     “No. Maybe she’s just into bondage. Maybe she’s got a kinky artist boyfriend who asked her to pose like that. You don’t know.”

     “She doesn’t have a boyfriend. I know that.”

     “Or whoever. A friend maybe. The point is you can’t tell anything by that sketch.”

     “You’re such a cynic. Why do you always have to be so skeptical about everything?”

     I want to say, Because you’re crazy. Because you’re always going off half-cocked on some wild goose chase or conspiracy theory. But I don’t. I can’t hurt her feelings. She really does have serious issues. So instead, I say, “Because jumping to that conclusion is a worst case scenario. You have to exhaust every other more reasonable explanation before you jump to kidnapping and murder. Remember Occam’s Razor?”

     “I don’t know him.”

     “...”

     And then a familiar blue Dodge pulls up to the building and her neighbor, Miranda, climbs out, carrying a grocery bag. She clearly hasn’t been kidnapped. Or murdered. She looks fine.

     We watch her walk into the building. When I turn back to her, I can’t help smiling.

     I just look at her.

     She shrugs and says, “Shut up. You got lucky.”

     “I’d say she’s the one who’s lucky.”

     “Whatever. It’s still a weird sketch.”

     “I don’t deny that.”

     We sit drinking in silence for a few minutes.

     Then she says, “I’m not too religious sometimes...”

     And we’re off...

Telepathic Dragon

FRIDAY

Marlee (16) was living in a boarding house on Blague Street when she and her best friend Rebecca tried Telepathic Dragon for the first (and only) time. Rebecca (15) still lived with her mom and dad.
    “So, what’s in this stuff, exactly?” Rebecca asked. She was sitting on Marlee’s bed, drinking a sweating bottle of Coors.
     Marlee sat Indian-style on the floor, unfolding a crumpled ball of tinfoil, a homemade hookah between her legs. “It’s a combination of stuff. I’m not sure exactly...”
     “You really think it’ll work?”
     Marlee shrugged. “Not sure. It’s supposed to.”
     “We’ll be able to read each other’s minds?”
     “Supposedly. That’s what Dave-Doug told me.”
     “This is so exciting.” Rebecca finished her beer, plucked another from the cooler at the foot of Marlee’s bed.
     Marlee finished packing the bowl with a granular, greenish-brown substance. “You ready?”
     “Just a sec.” Rebecca took a long sip of beer and then sat across from Marlee. She tucked her legs into the lotus position.
     “I wish I could sit like that,” said Marlee.
     “It just takes practice.”
     “Doesn’t it get uncomfortable after a while?”
     “No, not at all. I sit like this all the time.”
     “I wish I could. Gimme your lighter.”

     “Here.”
     Marlee placed the end of a brown, resinous rubber tube into her mouth, clicked a flame over the bowl and inhaled. The water in the glass canister bubbled.
     The smoke hit her lungs like burning ice and she had to fight against coughing it free.
     She passed the tube to Rebecca. Her eyes were watering.
     Rebecca inhaled. A veteran stoner, she managed to keep the smoke down without effort.
     Marlee exhaled, then held another flame over the bowl and took another hit.
     Rebecca let out her smoke. “How much are we supposed to dew? Dew you feel anything yet?”
     Marlee shrugged, passed the tube back to her girlfriend.
    A ripping sound erupted behind Marlee, like a thousand sheets of paper being torn apart at once and Rebecca said, “What the fuck was that?”

Bad Accident

I took a little drink and I'm feelin' right
I can fly right over everything, everything in sight
There's a slow-poking cat I'm gonna pass him on the right

Transfusion, transfusion
I'm a real gone paleface and that's no illusion
I'm never never never gonna speed again
Pass the claret to me, Barrett

                                                                                                                -- Nervous Norvus, Transfusion

Part I

After spending nearly three months at the Evergreen Hospital Detoxification Center in Grossknot, Connecticut, Louis Driscoll was finally driving home. The temptation to drink no longer smoldered inside him (mainly due to the wonderful medication they had him on) and he was eager (and a little afraid?) to begin the long process of rebuilding his shattered life. Nightmares of the accident had finally, thankfully ceased and Louis felt stronger and more confident than he had in many lost, booze-drenched years...

     The weeks spent at the hospital had been hard. The long nights of despair and suicidal hopelessness had threatened the foundation of his sanity. He relived the accident over and over in his mind (the screams, the sound of shattering glass, the smell of gasoline). The guilt and remorse made him feel as if he were being crushed to death. He suffered seizures, hyperventilated into collapse during panic attacks and woke up screaming with night terrors.

     But eventually (again, thanks largely to medication) things began to clear and lift for Louis. He'd escaped the burning conflagration his mind had ignited. Now he was driving home.      But to what?

     He still had three hours or so before he reached Vermont. He knew his return would be a lonely one. Linda had taken the kids and fled to California. Louis couldn’t blame her but the loss still felt like a deep wound in his chest.

     Louis crossed the Vermont border by late afternoon. His old sidekick, Depression, began to ride along with him. Being back in Vermont reminded him with bitter clarity of the life he’d had there and the tragedy that had occurred. Louis shook his head, trying to keep himself awake and focused on the road. He turned off the highway and started down a smooth narrow street that unspooled through a dense pine forest. When he came to a three-way fork, he struggled to remember the correct route. Unsure, he made a left turn.

     Louis had gone almost a mile when the road began to deteriorate, becoming pitted with potholes and loose stones. He slowed, searching for familiar landmarks. He found none. His memory had been too badly corroded by alcohol.

     The woods around him were thick and dark and the farther he drove the more decayed the pavement became.

     He began to grow hot and anxious and popped a Valium. This was wrong. Taking that left had been a mistake. He decided he’d turn around at the next accommodating soft shoulder.

     But when the condition of the road began to improve, he   shrugged. Oh well. Might as well keep going, he thought to himself. He accelerated, getting his speed up to almost 50. Veering to the right, he rounded a slight bend, cool air drying the sweat from his forehead. He didn’t see the small brown dog until it was too late.

FRAMED!

Quentin Talbot looked up from his newspaper and squinted in the direction of his wife. “What did you say?”

     “I said Mrs. Benson is coming over later to pick up the old picture frames.”

     “Oh. Okay.”

     “I told her we don’t have any use for them anyway...”

     “Use for what?”

     “The picture frames! Honestly, Quentin!”

     “Oh sure, the picture frames. That’s what I thought you said.”

     June Talbot walked into the kitchen for her pills. She returned to the parlor.

     When Quentin saw her he said, “What picture frames are these?”

     “What?”

     “What picture frames?”

     “Those old ones you found in the basement.”

     “Oh, those.”

     “Yes, we have no use for them.”

     “Yeah, I guess not.”

     “Well, of course not!”

     He raised his newspaper then lowered it again. “Uh, June? Who are you giving them to again?”

     “Mrs. Benson. Is your hearing-aid in, Quentin?”

     “Huh?”

     “Put your hearing-aid in!”

     “No, don’t want any lemonade.”

     “Your hearing-aid!”

     “Oh! My hearing-aid.”

     “Yes, Quentin.”

     “It is in, June.”

     “Oh fuh gawd’s sake, Quentin!”

     June swallowed two yellow pills with a sip of tepid water.

     They sat in silence for several minutes.

     Then Quentin lowered his newspaper again. “Who the hell is Mrs. Benson?”

My Bucket List

I. Half a year or two ago, people kept asking me what was on my “bucket list.”

II. It was irritating.

III. Did they really think I was dying?

IV. Anyway, here’s a list of questions I came up with first:

·         1. It’s none of their damn business (technically not a question but whatever).

·         2. What made them think I even had a “bucket list?”

·         3. Did they just assume it?

·         4. Why would they assume it?

·         5. Was it written all over my face or something?

·         6. Did I look that bad?

·         7. Did the term “bucket list” come from that movie The Bucket List (Warner Bros. 2007)?

·         8. Or did it already exist as a thing and that’s where the       movie got it?

·         9. Is Jack Nicholson proud of that movie?

·         10. Is Morgan Freeman?

·         11. Does everyone have such a list?

·         12. Can we trade?

·         13. If you don’t accomplish everything on your list, does that mean you failed life in some way?

·         14. Was that last question existential or metaphysical?

·         15. Both?

·         16. Just stupid?

V. So anyway, without further ado, here it is - MY BUCKET LIST:

·         1(b). Hold hands with a prostitute.

·         2(b). Meet Colleen Stan. Ask her where she gets off.

·         3(b). Get trepanned.

·         4(b). Take DMT on a roller coaster.

·         5(b). Steal the mummified corpse of Elmer McCurdy.

·         6(b). Set fire to an art museum.

·         7(b). Turn base metal into gold.

·         8(b). Greet The Honorable Greebe.

·         9(b). See The Bucket List (Warner Bros. 2007).

·         10(b). Write a bucket list. √   

VI. Pop Quiz:

·         1(c). Without looking, how many items are on my list?

·         2(c). Am I kidding? High? What?

·         3(c). Do you have a “bucket list”?

·         4(c). If you answered “yes” to #3 then U R lame.

·         5(c). Who or what is a “Greebe”?

·         6(c). Is he (or she) really honorable?

·         7(c). Or what?

·         8(c). On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate Moon River?

§  A (1). As a song. ( )

§  B (1). As a river. ( )

§  C (1). As a poultice.  ( )

·         9(c). Is this getting on your nerves yet?

·         10(c). Discuss.