Finding a Book Under the Bureau You Keep Your Keys On by Michael J. Rosenbaum

Finding a Book Under the Bureau You Keep Your Keys On
by Michael J. Rosenbaum

As you move toward another day, on your way to work, your hand absently, mechanically, swings over the top of the bureau that sits next to the front door of your apartment, meaning to grab the keys that are kept there. But in its haste to move on toward the door knob, your hand doesn’t completely close around the keys and they’re knocked to the floor. A shock goes through you as the keys make the kind of small, crashing sound that keys make as they hit the hardwood floor, and you stare at them for a moment, unsure—the routine broken (strangely, the hand has continued on and turned the knob and opened the door). Recovering quickly though, you bend over for them. But as you do, you notice a stack of papers under the bureau.  Another incongruity. You drop to your knees and press your face close to the cool wood for a better look and you find that it’s not a stack of papers, not in the way you thought it was, but is a book instead. So you reach under, curious, mind whirling through the memory bank, trying prematurely to solve the mystery, even though the answer is only a moment away. ** Read on! **

Dog Farts and Dancer Girls by Brady Allen

Dog Farts and Dancer Girls

by Brady Allen

Emotions. They are misleading. Of this, he was sure.

They puttered along in the downtown traffic. Snowflakes were clinging desperately to the windshield in the borderline freezing weather, seeming to know that a sudden burst of sunshine could end their already short existence.

Anger: not as it appeared—beneath it was always sadness.

And sadness was impossible without first having happiness.

No wonder so many people are just generally fucked up. Emotions aren’t clear cut or reliable.

Next to him, she put on her makeup, looking into the mirror in the passenger-side visor. In her late thirties and she still had the face of a child, a face alive with curiosity, but with a certain sadness, too, if you looked deep into her eyes. This said that she must have been happy once, and the childlike quality said she wanted to be happy again. She had the look of a kid who has suddenly realized that she must grow up one day and that it won’t be everything she expects it to be.

He had a can of Coors between his legs. Ice cold from the cooler in the back seat. And he had one in his hand, sweating, almost empty.

She worked the mascara on her lashes. “So?” she asked.

Neither of them had spoken for five minutes or more, but he knew exactly what she was asking. ** Read on! **

The Minx by Cassandra Dunn

The Minx
by Cassandra Dunn

Like me, the minx was a ten o’clock regular at Lily’s Cafe. She wasn’t friendly, although she wasn’t rude, she just never returned my smiles or made any effort to exchange greetings. She always hid behind her oversized sunglasses, feigning absorption in the man beside her, a magenta smile on her face, a girlish giggle squeaking out of her throat.

She was Asian, slim and petite, probably early forties to judge by her hands, as my years of living in LA had taught me to do. Faces lied about age all the time, bodies, too, but hands kept you honest. She always dressed like a young girl, in short skirts, low-slung tops, with chunky jewelry and ridiculous heels she tottered on. She never came alone, was always on the arm of some older man.

Today’s guy was fairly casual, in his jeans and button-down shirt, and fairly young, with his hip shaved head, his recent tan, his confidently squared shoulders while he waited for their order.

I took my coffee, tried and failed to exchange a smile with her, had to settle for one from her latest guy, which made me like him and made the game of people-watching less fun. Now I was invested. Now I was worried about him, this complete stranger, resting his hand casually around the waist of the minx. ** Read on! **

Man Murders Wife by Judy Viertel

Man Murders Wife
by Judy Viertel

I’m running. I stop to retie my shoe, and find myself looking at a young woman’s breasts. She’s walking towards me—I don’t mean to stare, I’m not a lesbian, although my short hair and lack of makeup often confuse people. It’s the way her tight shirt pushes her breasts up that makes them difficult to ignore. They’re oddly rounded, like two cereal bowls propped against her chest. As I finish with my shoelace, she wobbles past on spiked heels. Ankle breakers, my grandmother would have called those boots, and her leather skirt is so tight she can only manage tiny, nibbling steps. The two men she’s walking with have to support her as she steps down into the crosswalk. They look ten years older than her. They outweigh her, each of them, by at least a hundred pounds. It’s none of my business. Even so, I start thinking about something I recently read.

A man murdered his wife. She was a fashion model. Did he use a gun, or was it a knife? I can’t remember. He killed her and dumped the body. But first, he cut off all her fingers. He pulled her teeth. Why? No fingerprints, no dental records. There was no way for the police to identify the body. But those detectives, they were smart. They traced the serial numbers in her breast implants. That’s how they caught the husband. ** Read on! **

The Limo Driver’s Diary by AJ Profeta

The Limo Driver’s Diary
by AJ Profeta

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

This is the day I remembered what Leonardo Da Vinci once said.

I was on my way back to Connecticut after an early-morning run to LaGuardia. Dawn was breaking over the Hutchinson River Parkway as I approached the Westchester County line.

I was trying to settle in and prepare myself for another long day of shuffling self-important yuppie business types to and from New York airports. So help me, if I had to hear one more conference call dotted with corporate speak, I was going to have to fight to keep from tossing my breakfast. Terms like “I reached out to him” so he could “get his head around this” and “produce a positive R.O.I.” are so blatantly phony, they make my skin crawl.

I was thinking about the next passenger who would greet me with “how are you?” when he couldn’t care less when I cruised around a wide bend and was temporarily blinded by the sunrise. Automatically my right foot went to the brake as my left hand went to the visor.

Just as my vision cleared, I was startled by a thunderous roar coming up on my right. A maniac in a Nazi helmet and outlaw colors blew by me — he had to be doing well over a hundred.

“Jesus!” I screamed. I got that iceball-in-the-stomach feeling. Soon I collected myself and settled in at my comfortable and safe sixty miles an hour.

A short time later, I came up on the snake-like curves of the Merritt Parkway in Greenwich. Again, the morning sun caught me by surprise. Again, coming around a bend, I was blinded by the now stronger, larger dawn devil. Again, the automatic hand-and-foot thing slowed me as I hoped it wouldn’t take more than a split-second to see clearly.

Brake lights! Hundreds of brake lights turning my entire world panic-red. The worn brake rotors on my Town Car tank made the whole car shake and shimmy as I braked harder.

About three seconds after I realized I was not going to crash, I saw him. He was sprawled face-down on the shoulder, motionless, his Nazi helmet securely covering a brain that had just had its last thought.

A thirty-something woman stood in the shoulder, talking frantically on her cell phone. The trunk of her car was pushed in, nearly covering the rear windshield. An ambulance was screaming up behind me. A few cars had stopped near the mangled Harley, and several people were now running toward the victim.

I snailed past the body slowly enough to read the lettering on the back of his leather jacket. It read: IMMORTALS. BRONX, N.Y. The only thing immortal about this guy would be the carnage of this scene, frozen in my memory. ** Read on! **

Long Time Gone by Gary Carter

Long Time Gone

By Gary Carter

One sunny morning in 1969, dressed for his job at Randall’s Business Supplies, Alfred Burns—just plain Al to most folks—pecked his wife of nine years on the cheek, walked out the door and disappeared. He was thirty-one, in good health and had given no signs of anything that would prompt him to evaporate from a life about which he had never complained or even hinted at discontent. There were no indications of foul play, and a missing person report yielded nothing.

He was not seen or heard from again until a slightly overcast afternoon in 1973 when he opened the screen door and strolled into the kitchen, walked past his wife, who froze at the sink, and the man at the table, whose arm hovered between a bowl of soup and his open mouth. Al nodded to both as he passed into the living room, where he stood and slowly rotated as if examining the elements of life within. There was a slight, seemingly pleased smile angled across his lips that were partially hidden beneath a scraggly mustache. His hair hung below his shoulders, its dark brown now streaked light by the sun. His pants appeared to be the same pale chinos he had worn the morning he disappeared, though the edges of the cuffs and pockets were frayed. Instead of the short-sleeved white shirt, which Evelyn had starched and ironed that long-ago morning, Al’s upper body now was covered by a loose-fitting blouse with billowing sleeves that was trimmed in intricate embroidery that seemed vaguely Mexican.

At least it was nothing that Evelyn could pinpoint as she followed Al into the room, stopping a few feet away to watch him spin slowly as if reacquainting himself with the place and what was in it. He came around to face her, giving her a quizzical look. ** Read on! **

A Safe Deposit by Mark Charney

A Safe Deposit

By Mark Charney

Lena welcomes Barry home from the memorial service around two o’clock, his gray eyes moist and dulled behind the tortoise shell frames. He removes his jacket, loosens his tie, unbuttons his collar, and sits in the chair before the bay window where he scans the bookshelves, desk, and the fireplace mantel with a photograph of three men: Meier, Goldman, and himself. It’s a photograph that she would have preferred taking off the mantel years ago. Barry insisted, “No, leave it.”

She had not gone with him this morning, had decided not to. It had been years since she’d set foot on campus and it would have been too difficult, too many memories there. She’d been an active faculty wife in those years, contributing her share to the school’s fundraising and campus causes, but had stopped after what happened, happened. She had stopped attending events related to the university after Barry had become persona non grata because by extension, she too had suffered the same.

Goldman’s death and today’s service might have been a special occasion, but she didn’t care to put up a front. Barry could. It was his choice and he could or would not stay away. He’d flown in from his consulting work in Florida to attend the service because it was his last chance to say goodbye to an old friend and mentor, pay his respects to someone he cared about and admired. He’d asked her to come along too, but she wouldn’t or couldn’t, and after she met his second request with a hard stare and a steady head shake, he didn’t ask again.

She joins him in the den now because she’s making a grocery list, and she wants his input. Setting her pad on the end table, she turns to him quickly. Her motions are rapid but fluid, elegant. She keeps her hair pulled back with a black scarf, exposing a high forehead, coppery skin, delicate features. Her body is petite and the limbs angular, attenuated like those of a ballerina. “May I bring you anything from the store?” she asks.

“No,” he says, staring absently at her pad and pencil. The back of her hand brushes a statue of Ganeshu that rests atop an arts and crafts writing table. The carved lava Ganeshu swings his trunk, holds a broken tusk in one hand and a stony sweet treat in the other. It isn’t an antique but she likes quirky objects as much as she likes antiques, and this one didn’t come cheap.

“Lena?” he asks, chin lowered into his chest, eyes ignoring Ganeshu but not her.

“Yes.”

“Was there ever a letter?” ** Read on! **

Sunshine And Stones by Cynthia Wilson

Sunshine and Stones

By Cynthia Wilson

We were on our way to school in Jack Spyder’s truck jammin’ to the tunes when an announcer’s voice broke in the middle of “Blinded by the Light.”

“Late last evening, a Convair 240 carrying the members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, crashed in a swamp near Gillsburg, Mississippi.” The announcer had tears in his throat. “Dead are lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines, his sister, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, along with both the pilot and co-pilot.” We sat with our shirts stuck to the back of the seats, a sudden sweat upon us, while the truck slowed down as if from its own shock. We could hear the announcer shuffling papers, attempting to collect himself before going on. “The plane was en route from a concert in Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana when sources say it ran out of gas and went down. Injured are drummer Artimus Pyle, Gary Rossington, and Leslie Hawkins. Guitar player Allen Collins and bassist Leon Wilkeson  are both in serious condition. We will have more details as information comes in. Again, the plane carrying members of southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd has crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zandt, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines are dead. And now, a moment of silence.”

The truck drifted over to the side of the road. The silence was black. The decision to skip school that day was unspoken, and Jack went off to find dope. Sarah and I went to raid her parents’ liquor cabinet. All we came up with was a bottle of cherry vodka. We met up in the cemetery. It seemed the appropriate place. The headstones were a scattered Stonehenge baked silver by a hot sun. We sat among them, legs crossed Indian style. ** Read on! **

The Tale of Rauðúlfr by Lisa Farrell

The Tale of Rauðúlfr
By Lisa Farrell

Hulda watched the flames dance until her dim eyes saw only light. She listened to the snapping and popping of the twigs, and ignored the sound of women’s voices through the wall. A bird was screeching outside, and she wondered how it could bear to open its beak and call out in such cold.

She had not thought she would survive this winter, but the children told her that the signs of Harpa-month were already here. Well, she could not yet feel it. Her bones still felt like the twigs in the fire, though under siege by ice rather than heat. She could barely move, but spent her hours trying to fold herself up small, keeping her face in the glow, until they teased her that the bristles on her chin would singe. They did not respect her, these young women whose bellies still waxed and waned like the moon. They had continually knocked into her as they prepared the day meal around her, as though she were an unwelcome guest. Yet this was her seat, her place, and she had earned her spot by the hearth-fire, having cooked on it for so many years. At least Rauðúlfr had made the women promise not to let the fire die. He was a good boy; he took care of his mother, as a son should. ** Read on! **

The Man Who Shot Stonewall Jackson by Gary Beck

The Man Who Shot Stonewall Jackson

By Gary Beck

It happened once before, when I was a young man. The newspapers clamored for war, self-appointed know-it-alls told us why we had to fight and everyone believed them, especially the youngsters like me who got all fired up to join the army. So now, when those big headlines screamed ‘Remember The Maine,’ there wasn’t any more doubt that there would be war with Spain. And off they went to enlist, just like they were going to a picnic, as irreverent and ignorant as we were back in 1861. My eldest son told me he had to join up and I tried to discourage him. I told him how crazy it was for two groups of men to stand and blaze away at each other, but he wouldn’t listen. All he said was: “War’s not fought that way anymore, Pa.”

So I held my peace and watched him go, like my pa watched me go. When he died of yellow fever, before he even fought in a battle, it was another terrible affliction that I had to accept. But I guess he was right about it being a new kind of war, because it was over pretty quick and we got all these new places; Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Philippines and Guam. I never even heard of Guam. So I kept on farming and doing my chores but I was pretty much empty inside. I had been that way ever since the surrender at Appomattox, which ended my daily suffering, but left me a hollow man. I went through all the motions of the living and tried my best to be a good husband and father, and I never told anyone how I felt. How could anyone who hadn’t been there understand? Sometimes, when I went to town and saw the few old hands who survived the entire war, like me, there was nothing we could say. We just looked at each other for a moment, nodded in recognition that we were still alive and moved on. ** Read on! **