Genre: Inspirational
Type of Short Story: Short Story
Summary: Leah Wrestles with God by A.J. Kandathil is a short story inspired by Genesis 29:20-25, the story in which Jacob marries Leah. Kandathil, a Pushcart Prize nominee, currently writes about the cross-sections between literature and television for Ploughshares, and she is at work on her first book. This short story focuses on the story of Jacob, and is an imagined account told from Leah’s point of view. “In the Bible’s account, the story belongs to Jacob, and he is--by many measures--a hero. But what of the people who became little more than detritus on his journey to father the nations? What of the wife he didn’t love?”
Excerpt:
He’d asked those words, but they didn’t form a true question. If I didn’t marry Jacob, then I’d either never wed, or I’d be wed to an outsider who might take me away. This was the only home I knew, and I didn’t want to leave it. In that brief moment, I saw my father’s deceit for what it might have been—a kindness to me, his eldest daughter, who had always been overlooked. Even he thought of me as the other sister. I’d never find a husband like Jacob on my own, and my father knew it. It was this kindness, even in its deceitful cradle, that undid the tangles of my integrity. This action, for better or worse, would hold our family together. I took a timid step toward Jacob’s tent, and I touched my father’s cloak.
Read the complete work here. Also visit the author's website.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
"Flight of the Kikayon" by Ryan Kirk (Novelette)
Genre: Science Fiction
Type of Short Story: Novelette
Summary: Clones, motherhood, and a luxury spaceliner. What could possibly go wrong?
With five million credits in her pocket and a nanny-clone to take her place, Lydia thought walking away from her marriage would be easier than sipping cocktails at a society party. But Lydia's plans didn't include an illegal sport-fishing expedition on an interdicted waterworld, and her husband has a scheme of his own.
FLIGHT OF THE KIKAYON is classic sci-fi with a side order of adventure.
Excerpt:
The alien skies of Jannah IV stretch above me, infinite as time itself. This is day six hundred forty seven since the Kikayon's departure, but no one will come for me because no one knows I am missing. Well, no one but Cara.
It is an hour before dawn, and I am standing on the beach fantasizing about bread. Dreaming about the warm, yeasty aroma, the crisp surrender of the crust under my teeth and the yielding whiteness inside. I imagine dinner rolls torn in half and filled with melting butter, then licking my finger to dab runaway crumbs from the tablecloth. Pungent sourdough. Crusty baguettes. Small, sweet loaves dark with molasses.
I turn over a lump of seaweed to reveal sand fleas bigger than my thumb. I've learned to crack their shells with my teeth and suck out the insides. They are cold, slimy, and nothing like bread. When the sand fleas are gone, I slurp down some of the velvet kelp fronds, grumbling over their fishy stink. I spit grains of sand and look to the sky.
The edge of the horizon glows an incandescent pink against a cloudless, indigo heaven.
I shield my eyes with my hand. My once-manicured fingernails are splitting and caked with grime after my breakfast.
The coming heat warms my palm, and my eyes water in anticipation of the harsh light. The planet's twin suns will rise soon, and I must return to my cave to wait for the next dark.
On the sandbar some four hundred meters distant, the Kikayon's looted airskiff lies mired like a mastodon in a tar pit.
Squinting into the foredawn, I turn away from the water's edge. My bare feet leave footprints where the sand is wet, then shallow craters where it's dry. The trail ahead of me is hard to see in the gray light, but my feet know every rock and root from two years of nightly pilgrimage.
I gave the tissue sample to make Cara nearly seven years ago. With that amount of time to plan, you'd think I might have done a better job. If not for the accident, I'd be on Cirrus now, probably sipping a glass of wine at a cocktail party.
Friday, August 16, 2013
"The Founders" by Short Fiction Writers Guild (Short Stories)
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Type of Short Story: Short Story Anthology
Summary: Four stories. Four voices. Four different points of view. From the founders of the Short Fiction Writers Guild (SFWG), an organization dedicated to the celebration of all genres of short fiction, comes their first anthology, THE FOUNDERS.
Paranormal Romance from C.C. Kelly: VAMPIRES NEED PEDICURES TOO
Holly lives in Iowa. She likes books and works at the Library. She is a simple girl with simple tastes and wants. But, her best friend Deb is convinced Holly needs to get out for a change and get a real date. Tonight she has convinced Holly to attend an evening of speed dating at the hottest underground restaurant in town. After a day of shopping, they are both dressed to kill, which is a good thing, because Holly's first 'date' is a vampire. A simple vampire with simple wants and tastes.
Fantasy Fiction from Jason Varrone: WARRIOR'S ASCENSION (THE LEGACY SERIES: PREQUEL)
A fierce battle with a hated enemy leaves a warrior dying. Only in the fated delivery of a chronicler will he find solace in relaying his story. The fate of the Kingdom of Rothesia depends on it. Thus begins his story of honor, vengeance, and love. Through the recorded account, his legacy as a hero may pass through the ages. This fantasy fiction novella (about 52 book pages), the prequel to The Legacy Series, tells the courageous tale of the life of a warrior. This prequel sets off the chain of events that place the throne of the king, and the kingdom itself, in peril. Book one in The Legacy Series, a novel entitled King's Reaping, is now available.
Science Fiction from Alain Gomez: WORTH THE RISK - BOOK ONE of the CALEN NATARI SAGA
The assassin profession is proving to be more difficult than Calen anticipated. Not exactly overwhelmed with job requests, Calen is forced to land on a nearby planet to repair her badly damaged ship. A stranger she runs into at the local cantina may be the solution to her problems. He lost his honor but is rich enough to pay Calen to help him regain it. All she has to do is risk her life...
Science Fiction from Casper Bogart: GIFT FROM A MAGI
In 2150, if you need a replacement lung, kidney, liver or ticker, you'll need to go through Kong Magi, a mobster controlling the lucrative parts trade in NY-Samsung City. Normally an unsentimental businessman, Kong's life changes when a client makes a very unusual request.
Buy this anthology on Amazon or Smashwords.
Friday, August 9, 2013
"Tears of the Goddess" by R.M. Prioleau (Novelette)
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Type of Short Story: Novelette
Summary: Celestra, Goddess of Beauty, aspires to leave her home of Siyr, the god-realm, to travel the cosmos and create a new world of her own. But her dreams cannot be fulfilled unless she is one of the seven chosen to undergo a trial put forth by the Genesis Spirit—a trial in which she alone must nourish a Genesis Seed with tears from her heart.Tydus, God of Chaos, is renowned and adored by many in Siyr, but his heart has always yearned for only one—Celestra. Unlike most Siyran goddesses, Celestra is unyielding and determined, but Tydus’s attempts to win her heart go unnoticed as she keeps her attention focused on her trial.
This fanciful tale of romance and determination tells the story of two lovers who strive for happiness and realize how much they need one another.
Excerpt:
Siyr, the realm of the gods, was made up of the delicate fabric of time and space that housed the seeds of life. The realm existed within the vastness of the plane of astral beings. Siyr was the gateway to the beginning and end of all existence—a place where chaos and peace became one. Often, the gods would embark upon their own journeys, creating worlds and new realms that connected to their home plane. All gods aspired to rule over their own domains, but such privileges were only granted by the god king Aetern to a select seven, and even then only on the seventh tier of every seventh transition, when the Genesis Tree bore fruit that contained the seeds of creation. It was Aetern’s intent that those selected would succeed in their endeavors, and they would keep the boundless energy of the act of creation flowing into the home realm.
Celestra blinked, her reflection in the silver mirror swimming back into focus. Her thoughts kept drifting to the Genesis Tree and the moment when she might finally be selected. With a sigh, she resumed brushing her silken hair. When she finished, she braided several long plaits, which she arranged around her head in intricate designs, letting the remainder flow loose down her bare back. She completed her coiffure by tucking fresh, fragrant honeysuckle blossoms into her white tresses.
King Aetern had announced a formal gathering that would bring all of Siyr’s inhabitants to Zenith Palace. Like most gods, Aetern loved a good party and hosted them often. This particular event, however, not only promised an eventide of entertainment and bountiful melomel—the most coveted drink of the Siyran gods, a honey wine infused with the sweetest pomegranate and edenfruit picked from the Wilderness of Paradise—but Aetern and his queen, Myria, were to make an important announcement.
Celestra was hardly interested in socializing at the gathering, but she would do her duty as formalities and proper protocol demanded. Her mind continuously raced, dreaming about the moment when she would hopefully be given the chance to set out on her own. The seventh tier of the seventh transition—the Seventh of the Seventh—was rapidly approaching, and she couldn’t wait.
As she stood from her vanity, the sheer material of her long, white gown flowed around her voluptuous form like water, while diamonds scattered across the material sparkled like the prismatic spray from a fountain. Around her neck, she wore a small, empty glass vial secured on a crystalline chain. Matching diamond bangles adorned her forearms. She stepped into white, diamond-studded slippers and gazed at her reflection a final time. She twisted slightly, turning her back to the mirror. Slowly, gracefully, two white, feathery wings unfolded from her shoulders. She stretched the wings and flapped them gently a few times, sending a few tiny feathers fluttering to the ground. Satisfied, she folded them around her body and departed her home.
As she walked the grand arcade that circled the cool, crystalline walls of her home, the scent of her signature flower, the honeysuckle, wafted from the trellises, filling her senses and calming her nerves. She glanced at the city streets, which were crafted of pure marble inlaid with abstract golden designs that glistened and shimmered in the light of Solis, God of Radiance. But as he rested, his light was slowly eclipsed by the presence of Luna, the eventide goddess, who filled the sky with her presence, marking the coming of the sixth tier of the sixth transition—the Sixth of the Sixth.
Find out more on Prioleau's website!
Friday, August 2, 2013
"Red Light Plywood" by John Allison (Short Story)
Genre: General Fiction
Type of Short Story: Short Story
Complete Story:
I must have been quite a sight, standing in front of a boarded-up storefront on 42nd Street with my only "business suit" and a starched white blouse on, touching an indentation in the plywood under the fading red paint they'd slapped on it, with my worn leather bag on my left shoulder and a crowbar in my right hand. If that wasn't enough, the brown leather work gloves clashed with my dark blue suit! I was still absolutely soaring from my meeting at the bank. The 90's were gonna go out with a bang for me after all. I was now a businesswoman, ready to hire a staff! The sight of him, as he turned the corner, shattered my moment of pride, my moment of joy. Now walking slower, with a cane, he headed in my direction. I was sure he wouldn't even know who I was. So how would I remember this day? Would it be the start of a bright, exciting new future for me and my dear friends, or the end of my life as I know it for the sake of justice, to release years of anger with a moment of revenge?
I wasn't the only poor girl in Manhattan who took on the position of stripper. You can dismiss me, but I probably made more than you! In my 18 years in the business, starting in the 70's, I've met so many sisters who I grew to love - but you also learn not to get too attached, because they tend to be transient, always looking for a better opportunity. It was only natural that I became most fond of the full-time staff that made their careers here as well. I remember the day I had my interview, first with the owner, then with Dear Miss Amanda, the House Mother. The title has great meaning, since she was the only mother for many of the girls who passed through. She took care of us in and out of the house, and was an amazing makeup artist as well. When she first saw me, Miss Amanda told me how beautiful I was and how my slim waist and young boobs would take me far. I asked how much girls made. She said the house paid $26 a night. From your tips, you had to make a contribution to the house, and one to the non-performing staff. Typically a girl would take home about five hundred a night. My heart jumped. Five hundred dollars a night? Did I really hear this? Then she took me over to a corner table in the empty house and sat me down. She was so good at this. I came to learn that she was from Cuba, which is why we could talk about anything and she could never offend me. We were two colored girls.
"Dear," she said, "you're a beautiful thing, and men with money come here to drink and look at the bodies of beautiful girls. But even though you have such a smooth light skin, you're a colored girl. For the men, you're a dilemma. You're part of every man's fantasy, a near-naked beauty within arm's reach. But you're not white, and some will have a problem with that. Each one will be different, you'll just never know what to expect. For some, the thought of being close, or getting excited over a colored girl, will make them feel uncomfortable. I know, darling, it’s not a simple planet for us. Men want to treat strippers well, and they do, but many won't let you into their dreams. You'll constantly feel the excitement that some girls can generate, that you may not. You'll be reminded every day that you're a colored girl. I just have to tell you the truth, hon. A pretty white girl will walk away with $500 a night easy. Black girls, maybe $200. A light-skinned beauty like you, I just don't know what to tell you. Maybe $250. But if you attract a following, if they grow to love you, you could pull in $800-900 a night. I've seen both. Either way, you'll pay your bills."
I took a deep breath. Will this crap ever change? Well maybe society will be slow to deal with the color of my skin. Maybe it’s all up to me, a stripper, because when we shook on it, that's what I became.
I was terrified, but I had to tell my Grammy what I had done, and I was so pleased that she didn’t scream! I don't think anyone knew, but she was actually a stripper for two years (or so she said)! She had some interesting stories of her own, and swore that stripping was invented by Negro slaves in the United States. Of course, she'd tell you they were the first to do most everything. I think they even invented the Big Mac. I love her so.
I assume you have some basic picture in your mind of this job. Everybody thinks they know what it's like to be a stripper. We run around naked a lot, do each other's makeup, constantly talk about our routines, perform a bunch of 15 minute sets between 9 PM and 2 AM six nights a week, and we deal with sweet, luscious men, drunk men, angry men, confused men, sweet women, crazy people, whoever looks like they want a smile from us. When we're not dancing, we're "meeting" our guests, making them feel like they almost have us, helping them to spend money.
Each of us has a stage name, one that we often change, and our lives hang on three coat hangers, each with a plastic bag attached, to keep the pieces of a complete outfit together. I've been lucky to have seen it all. We were a go-go bar for a while and I danced for hours in a bathing suit. I've worn pasties on my nipples. I've danced topless. I've danced in a G-string, which is the absolute best because the men love to slide a dollar bill into your string. You'd think they'd all be grabbing you but most are nervous and perfect gentlemen, thinking they're getting away with a little something as they slide a folded bill under the elastic. So often, they're cute. It was hard in the beginning, not knowing what to do when those fingers would get a little too big, but I learned to push them away, or kick them away, and flash my biggest smile while doing it. I grew confident that I could deal with whoever came along, you know? I was, after all, their goddess on stage. I was in charge of them! I've done some flash dancing, we called it, where they would get an occasional glimpse of pussy during the dance, but only "by accident", since full nudity certainly wasn't allowed. And of course, as the costumes changed, the girls changed. The new young things that came in always had more curves, bigger boobs, and skinny legs, and were willing to do anything for money. They gave stripping a bad name. Yes, we older girls had to step aside and let it happen, but they weren't us. They didn't know how to do it right. They saw a few music videos and thought they were pole queens. Still, you just have to let the art evolve.
I can't let you in the back room, but I'll describe it for you on a typical night, around 8:00 PM. It's New Frigging York, for God's sake. Floor space is at a premium, so don't expect much. Boobies bounce as girls run back and forth, asking to borrow your boa or big hat for the night. Miss Amanda is curling a girl's hair with one hand while putting rouge on another girl! Two bathroom door mirrors have been mounted sideways on the wall, with a plywood table under them, with old, numbered barstools for each of us. We're very sensitive about our stools. They are all we can call our own. The chairs are arranged by number. Each week, you'd sit according to how much you grossed for the past week. Every girl, of course, wanted chair #1! However there was a chair before #1, which they "lovingly" numbered zero. That was my chair. I was always in chair number zero only because I can be so easily squished up against the wall. It seemed like the place for my skinny body, and it was quite a wall! Plywood. Does that even count as real wood? I don't know. We offered countless times to do the work, paint the place, put up some hooks and things, if the management would give us a few dollars for the materials, but it never happened. So on a typical night I'd be naked, putting on makeup, smooshed up against the naked wall. I decided to make it my wall, something good for me, not a problem. I'd thumbtack pictures on the wall out of Cosmo if I thought they could be an idea for a new outfit for someone. I always had a picture of Carol Doda up, the patron saint of strippers, who performed topless in 1964 and completely nude in 1969 in San Francisco. The woman had balls. She was a trailblazer. She is worthy of being displayed every day. Whenever Miss Amanda spotted Carol she'd start telling us stories of burlesque days and the Condor Club. They were just her memories, but some of our best shows were based on ideas that came from her stories. Art lives on!
The first day I was performed, I found a carpenter's pencil and drew a line deep into the plywood, to remember that day.
The first time I had a $500 day, I drew a line on the plywood, above the first. On the first Monday of every month, I would touch the first line, and recite the date and event. Then I would move up to the second line. It was my way of recording turning points, and to keep my life fresh in my mind, since Grammy told me the worst thing you can do is make the same mistake twice.
You'd probably see Ed walk through our little room. It's embarrassing that, as good as he was to us all, we all only knew him as Ed - never thought he might have a full name like the rest of us. He was the House Father, if there was such a title - the bouncer, our drunk handler, and street barker. He could read a lone gentleman from a block away and come up with just the right thing to say, to make him stop and turn into The Strip Shop. They all wanted a reason to come in, but most wouldn't on their own. So he'd tell them about a special performer of the night, or about the chance to spend some time with a pretty lady who likes tall men, or maybe just to provide them with the alibi they wanted - just stop in for a drink!
"The girls love to perform for you. These girls could be acting in Hollywood, but this is what they want to do. Make them feel appreciated, would you please?"
He barked when he needed, he talked like a friend when it's what they needed. He was our Ed. He also knew when tits were peaking in the back room and it was always when he just had to "cut through".
I made the third line on my wall the day after my first softball game. Yes, strip joints have softball teams! I must admit we were pretty good. We always looked forward to playing the Blue Boys, the team from the homosexual strip joint. We would just laugh the whole time, watching boys swing and throw like girls. Our laughing would make them laugh. We looked like a bunch of drunken ex-lovers who decided to have one last softball game. We'd hug them and they'd pinch our bottoms, and we'd flash them when they were supposed to be watching the ball. They gave us such a sense of relaxation and freedom - God bless their oiled little bodies.
I had a few lines on my wall for what seemed important events at the time, but within a week they weren't so special - like the first time I danced topless. The seventh line on my wall, one that I recited and relived the first Monday of every month, was longer than the others. He came into the Shop one night around 11 PM. He made it known he was from Milwaukee, looking to settle and start a business in the City. He flashed some money around and quickly got the best table. He wasn't necessarily good looking, but money makes them look better, and he was certainly smooth if nothing else. He was particularly attentive to me, and was slipping 20's into my G-string which lusciously clashed with the one's. He whispered in my ear, "You take my breath away." I looked into his eyes, and could tell he was sincere. His smile was so attractive, so genuine. Between sets he bought me drinks. This was at a time when the management realized they could make a lot of money on alcohol, so put up "Hey honey, can I buy you a drink?" signs in the bathrooms, and encouraged the clientele to treat their favorite dancer with some champagne (available by the bottle only, of course). He was happy to do so, although I was working and wasn't supposed to touch it. Maybe I did taste test it a little more than I should have.
He was addictive. He never actually asked for sex. He just smelled like sex with him would be heavenly. His hand on my arm made me feel warm down there.
"Please come back to my hotel room with me. I'm so alone. Just a short visit. I have a television! We can have a drink and relax, watch some TV. I so enjoy being with you. It will be nice to have company." He was good. He described all the things that I wanted. I wanted to be pampered a little; wanted to take a night off for a change; wanted to kick off my shoes, watch TV and have a drink, and yes, there's always the fantasy that this could be the one, the real deal. He handed me $400 as we walked out the door, and put his finger to my lips before I could object, before I could ask what it was for. As we strolled down the street he slipped his arm around my waist and I felt so good. This was so right. He was the perfect gentleman as he held his room door open for me. When it closed, the first punch sent me flying across the room. I knew that was gonna leave a mark. I don't remember much after that, just bits and pieces of him grunting, pumping me with his little cock, then some of the others. I think, just like he'd promised me a special time, he'd promised a little something special to a few male hotel staff, who happily took what was offered, then held me up against the wall and beat me and beat me and picked me up when I collapsed so he could hit me some more - all in silence. There was not a word of why. The staff then efficiently threw me into one of the dumpsters in the back alley. I think that night he decided that New York City was the place for him.
Perhaps you can't understand, but my first and biggest feeling was not anger, but embarrassment. I didn't want to tell anyone what happened, but I had little choice. Nobody wants to see this many bruises - not the girls, not the clientele. I was shocked when someone first used the word rape. It was my stupid mistake. I trusted him. My mistake. But yes . . . it was rape. I can be important enough to myself to call it rape. My saying the word was the start of my becoming stronger. I wouldn't report it, for fear of being killed, but I found enough of myself left to label it. Still, I was just a stupid colored girl. That's how I felt inside.
I was certain that no one wanted to see a black and blue stripper. There probably isn't much of a crowd waiting to see a pregnant stripper either, I assumed. Yes, I'd gotten more than bruises from my stupidity. As my bruises healed, my belly grew. Jack, the manager, felt uncomfortable when I asked to do a set, but he agreed. Stripping was what I did. It's how I paid the bills! Plus, I had to go back. If I didn't, HE'd have beaten my soul. Jack didn't like his girls to ever be hurt in any way, and probably even would have let me buy paint, if I'd asked with my belly sticking out! Instead of trying to talk me out of it, he ran out the front door. The Barker man went to work!
"The only stripper in town brave enough to let you see her naked pregnant body, and we have her! It won't last forever folks! This is something you'll be telling the boys about around the water cooler! Hell, this is something you'll tell your grandkids about!"
And, thanks to big mouth, I actually developed quite a following. As the music would start, the spotlight would focus on the ratty velvet curtain at one end of the stage. I'd start to come out, always belly first, and they would cheer! So many men, daddies for sure, would put an extra $5 in my G-string and whisper "A little something extra for the kid," with the sweetest looks on their faces. They cared about me. The bar stocked a drink called "Baby Faced", which clients could buy to have a drink with me. It was a pitcher of orange juice, and a bottle of whiskey (for the man to add to his). They made more on juice then the bottles of cheap champagne they were selling.
Ed was right. It didn't last forever. In answer to my prayers, sweet Jesus lovingly blessed me with a stillbirth. I was so relieved. I named her Julie, and as soon as I did she became real, and I sobbed, and I begged for her forgiveness, and begged my Lord to never do anything I ask for again, ever. All I could see were tiny baby faces, and tiny baby fingers, in my mind. I made myself small and stayed there. After weeks of self-isolation, there was a knock on the door. It was Ed. He handed me a ratty book called "Get in Shape in 30 Days". He took my face in his hands and said “She died. You’re alive. We need you back now. They’ve been asking for you. Find any reason you need to come back. Live for yourself. Live for her.” Then he reached behind him, pulled a softball out of somewhere, threw it to me, and left - no hug, no smile, no words of encouragement. He’d said what needed to. He knew not to help. He knew I had to do this alone.
I spent a night saying goodbye to those images of little fingers. They just wouldn’t wrap around a ball. I started to picture all the loving faces who gave me extra money “for the little one”, and swore that I would make it right with them. I knew I had to do this. My life was not going to become a series of bad turning points. I was better than that. My Grammy taught me so. “Even when you got nothing, girl,” she’d say, “you got your strength. Use it.” I’d just forgotten for a minute. And so I worked with that stupid book, worked for a killer body, better’n before. I knew my goal, because the first game was ten days away - a ball game in the real world - a ball game in my world. Mine!
And so, through a door built with sit-ups and push-ups and jumping jacks, I pulled myself from out of the shadows and into the light that felt . . . different . . . but good.
For some reason, Ed wanted to give me a new stage name, so he called me Betsy Ross. "Your flag pole will never be the same, my friend, my countryman!" he'd yell, as he ambled around in front of the place. Too funny. My first day back, tummy tighter than ever, I watched lots of my regulars come in. I peeked through the curtain as they took their usual seats. When the music started I stripped down, fast! They whooped when they saw me in a G-string and a big, filled (!) lacey bra. As I danced around the center stage, I told my regulars to reach into that bra for their present. Their eyes got wide, and I got a big smile from all of ‘em, as they found that it was filled with rolled-up $5 bills, each with a little pink ribbon tied around it. On every bill, I wrote, "bless you". I was giving something back to as many of them as I could. I couldn't ever return the love I felt, but it was a start.
Do you understand how much family love you can feel in this job? Those on the outside just thought of us as dirty, degrading exotic dancers. It's too bad they don't know how much the performers and the regulars become such a close family - always there for you. It is true that New York City had become quite a stripper Mecca, and since we attracted people with "vices", an unsavory crowd slowly grew around our street. The pushers came in. The first sign of that was when drink sales went down and the smell of pot went up. Crime did go up in the area, as local thugs would roll our clients (on the way in, when they still had money). I'm sure there was a little Puerto Rican boy, who owned a big knife, not far from here, who paid cash for a used Cadillac, and counted out the money, all in one's.
Rudy Giuliani. Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Perhaps he did the right thing. He decided to clean up New York City which meant get rid of us. He declared all adult establishments a threat to public health, safety and welfare, and said we made New York City sleazy. Rules were passed, ordinances they called ‘em, which said that no adult establishments could operate within 500 feet of a residence, school, or place of worship. There were ratty high-rise apartments above all of our places. And so they started to shut us down - the strip clubs, the adult movie theatres, and the stores. Some said Mr. Giuliani Disney-fied Times Square, and while everyone in the business was fit to be tied, I knew it was the right thing. It was too bad for the strippers and the go-go boys, who really had no other skills to fall back on. But, hey, I was a taxpayer too, baby. This hurt New York! It took a few years to chase us out, and we were among the last to leave.
Even before we got our final eviction notice, the Shop had become more of a bar with dancing girls than a strip joint with a liquor license. It was over and everyone knew it. Most of the girls stopped showing up altogether, but I came every night, whether we did a show or not, and touched the lines on the wall, and recited every turning point in my life, including the line I'd drawn in for tomorrow, when we would be out of business. When the time came to go, I turned up the music ("Girls, Girls, Girls" - God, how we grew to hate Motley Crue), turned up the lights, and I slowly swung a wide circle on my pole. Miss Amanda leaned on the wall and watched. When the electrician walked by I slid a screwdriver out of his belt, got up on a chair and took the screws out of the plate that held the dance pole to the ceiling. Then I pushed it over. Surprisingly, I found myself sobbing and crying as I pushed and pushed, until the screws in the floor creaked and gave way. Just as the pole fell, the power went out, the room went quiet, with only a few worker lights remaining on. As we walked out the door, I hugged and kissed Miss Amanda, and turned back for one last look. The pole was gone. It wasn't a strip club any more.
I noticed that the carpenter was standing in front of my wall! Gently he eased it off the 2x4's it was nailed to. I stood by the door and watched as he hauled it out past me and hung it onto the store front, boarding it up. All the bars and stores on the whole block - all boarded up. Time there had stopped.
I didn't like unemployment, so I looked hard for a job every day. It kills your savings account, and I had a pretty good one going for a while! I printed my resume on business cards. They had my name on the front and said "ex-stripper" on the back. It made people smile, which made them talk. I did, after all, have some schmooze abilities!
For three years, I moved around, mostly as a Kelly Girl, working a few months in an office here or there, then a few months stuffing envelopes in a cold warehouse, then, I don't remember, it was a blur. One Monday morning, I picked up an old, dog-eared copy of the Sunday Times and read an article about how there was a block on 42nd Street of boarded up storefronts, and some local artist had been hired to brighten it all up. So he painted each one a bright primary color, so the one-block walk wouldn't be depressing, but "uplifting" for visitors who wandered around Times Square. The article reported that the block still sits, still painted but a little less bright and shiny, undeveloped, three years later. The writer wondered if anyone would ever risk trying to reinvent this real estate. The city was even willing to help! There was also a story from San Francisco. A new idea was sweeping the Bay Area - New Wave Burlesque Halls. They were classy, upscale, modern, rooted in the basics of pure Burlesque, but updated with smart new looks, intelligent humor, and magic! Low on the strip, big on the tease! And fun! As soon as I saw "Neo-Burlesque", in the time it took to read the phrase, I knew exactly how I was going to do it. It would be fantastic - not a place for drunks, but for hip couples and groups. And not cheap either! There would be no walk-ins. You'd have to buy tickets for this one, baby. We were going theatre! I remembered a Miss Amanda story of a girl named Charmion, and I looked her up because I thought her act would be a great classic to recreate! She was actually in vaudeville, a trapeze artist, and Thomas Edison made a movie of her way back in 1901 called the Trapeze Disrobing Act. Is that sweet or what? I didn't know who to turn to so I found a lawyer who helped me write up a business plan. I found Miss Amanda, my bottomless pit for the history of Burlesque. I found Ed, who now had a job as a machinist, who knew about how to run an entertainment business in New York. He'd done everything from working with distributors, running a loading dock, maintaining stock - all the things he did by day; to being a people mover - a schmoozer to the kind, and a bouncer to the ornery - at night. He was a licensed bartender too! Once we talked, I had no idea how much he actually had done! Both agreed to help me, if I could get money to buy a space and hire a staff, and we all agreed that The Strip Shop and the store next to it was a pretty nice little starting point, with ample floor space, high walls, and what was probably, at one time, a beautiful bar and kitchen.
I was 40 minutes early for my appointment at the bank, and practically peed my pants, I was so excited, as I made my presentation to two of the staff. They listened like they had no face muscles. It was hard to go on, but they had to loan me money. This was a great idea, a sure thing! After I was done, they thanked me. I expected them to go out in the hall and probably talk about the Yankees for five minutes before they came back in to tell me they couldn't help, but it's not the way it went down. I finished. The suit on the left wrote something on the back of a business card, slid it over to the suit on the right who nodded. Then he slid it across the table to me. It was an amount, with a big check mark after it. It was everything I asked for plus 10%. They stood up (so I did as well, not sure why). The suit on the left broke into the warmest smile I'd ever seen. He (professionally) gave me a hug, told me he wished he had 5% of my energy and excitement, and the suit on the right gave me his business card and told me to call him in 24 hours to get the account set up, and the contract signed. He thanked me for picking them, and said that they were excited to be part of re-energizing Times Square. Only a few years ago, we were a blight in the neighborhood. Now a burlesque house was going to be part of "re-energizing Times Square!" They didn't know how I'd managed to line up such an amazing staff, but with them in place, it was a sure-fire investment for them! If I were white I would have run out in the street and thrown my hat up in the Minneapolis air!
The Strip Shop (possible new name Bottoms Up Burlesque) was mine! I walked 14 blocks back to 42nd Street. I'd not seen it since. I stopped in a goofy little junk/hardware store that had old tools in the window, and bought a used crowbar. There was some young kid behind the counter who claimed it was a valuable collectible antique. I handed him a ten, and he took it, and without expression, he reached under the counter and slapped down two ratty workman's gloves (they must have been a set). Then he went back to reading a magazine. I tried on my new fashion statements, and they fit! Off I went.
So there I was. The storefront had been painted red - nothing fancy, just a fingernail-polish red. I could see, under the thick coat of cheap paint, faint indentations in the wood. My lines. My diary. My turning points. My finger slid slowly over the first one as I started to recite the history I knew so well. After that, I was going to oh-so-gently remove my wall and take it inside, because it was a part of me and I just wanted it!
I must have been quite a sight, caressing painted plywood on a boarded up storefront with my only "business suit" and a starched white blouse on, my worn leather bag on my left shoulder and a crowbar in my right hand. If that wasn't enough, the brown leather work gloves clashed with my dark blue suit! I was still absolutely soaring from my meeting at the bank. I was now a businesswoman, ready to hire my staff! And I was ready for this. I was a different person now. I felt strong.
The sight of him, as he turned the corner, shattered my moment of pride, my moment of joy. Now moving slowly with a cane, he walked in my direction. I was sure he wouldn't even know who I was. When he was six steps away, I reached into my bag and released the safety on my handgun. I'd bought it after he assaulted me, and always had it with me. My little 9 mm bodyguard! When he was five steps away, I imagined taking aim and pulling the trigger. When he was four steps away, I decided that this gun was never me. I choose a better life. This is my decision.
Type of Short Story: Short Story
Complete Story:
I must have been quite a sight, standing in front of a boarded-up storefront on 42nd Street with my only "business suit" and a starched white blouse on, touching an indentation in the plywood under the fading red paint they'd slapped on it, with my worn leather bag on my left shoulder and a crowbar in my right hand. If that wasn't enough, the brown leather work gloves clashed with my dark blue suit! I was still absolutely soaring from my meeting at the bank. The 90's were gonna go out with a bang for me after all. I was now a businesswoman, ready to hire a staff! The sight of him, as he turned the corner, shattered my moment of pride, my moment of joy. Now walking slower, with a cane, he headed in my direction. I was sure he wouldn't even know who I was. So how would I remember this day? Would it be the start of a bright, exciting new future for me and my dear friends, or the end of my life as I know it for the sake of justice, to release years of anger with a moment of revenge?
I wasn't the only poor girl in Manhattan who took on the position of stripper. You can dismiss me, but I probably made more than you! In my 18 years in the business, starting in the 70's, I've met so many sisters who I grew to love - but you also learn not to get too attached, because they tend to be transient, always looking for a better opportunity. It was only natural that I became most fond of the full-time staff that made their careers here as well. I remember the day I had my interview, first with the owner, then with Dear Miss Amanda, the House Mother. The title has great meaning, since she was the only mother for many of the girls who passed through. She took care of us in and out of the house, and was an amazing makeup artist as well. When she first saw me, Miss Amanda told me how beautiful I was and how my slim waist and young boobs would take me far. I asked how much girls made. She said the house paid $26 a night. From your tips, you had to make a contribution to the house, and one to the non-performing staff. Typically a girl would take home about five hundred a night. My heart jumped. Five hundred dollars a night? Did I really hear this? Then she took me over to a corner table in the empty house and sat me down. She was so good at this. I came to learn that she was from Cuba, which is why we could talk about anything and she could never offend me. We were two colored girls.
"Dear," she said, "you're a beautiful thing, and men with money come here to drink and look at the bodies of beautiful girls. But even though you have such a smooth light skin, you're a colored girl. For the men, you're a dilemma. You're part of every man's fantasy, a near-naked beauty within arm's reach. But you're not white, and some will have a problem with that. Each one will be different, you'll just never know what to expect. For some, the thought of being close, or getting excited over a colored girl, will make them feel uncomfortable. I know, darling, it’s not a simple planet for us. Men want to treat strippers well, and they do, but many won't let you into their dreams. You'll constantly feel the excitement that some girls can generate, that you may not. You'll be reminded every day that you're a colored girl. I just have to tell you the truth, hon. A pretty white girl will walk away with $500 a night easy. Black girls, maybe $200. A light-skinned beauty like you, I just don't know what to tell you. Maybe $250. But if you attract a following, if they grow to love you, you could pull in $800-900 a night. I've seen both. Either way, you'll pay your bills."
I took a deep breath. Will this crap ever change? Well maybe society will be slow to deal with the color of my skin. Maybe it’s all up to me, a stripper, because when we shook on it, that's what I became.
I was terrified, but I had to tell my Grammy what I had done, and I was so pleased that she didn’t scream! I don't think anyone knew, but she was actually a stripper for two years (or so she said)! She had some interesting stories of her own, and swore that stripping was invented by Negro slaves in the United States. Of course, she'd tell you they were the first to do most everything. I think they even invented the Big Mac. I love her so.
I assume you have some basic picture in your mind of this job. Everybody thinks they know what it's like to be a stripper. We run around naked a lot, do each other's makeup, constantly talk about our routines, perform a bunch of 15 minute sets between 9 PM and 2 AM six nights a week, and we deal with sweet, luscious men, drunk men, angry men, confused men, sweet women, crazy people, whoever looks like they want a smile from us. When we're not dancing, we're "meeting" our guests, making them feel like they almost have us, helping them to spend money.
Each of us has a stage name, one that we often change, and our lives hang on three coat hangers, each with a plastic bag attached, to keep the pieces of a complete outfit together. I've been lucky to have seen it all. We were a go-go bar for a while and I danced for hours in a bathing suit. I've worn pasties on my nipples. I've danced topless. I've danced in a G-string, which is the absolute best because the men love to slide a dollar bill into your string. You'd think they'd all be grabbing you but most are nervous and perfect gentlemen, thinking they're getting away with a little something as they slide a folded bill under the elastic. So often, they're cute. It was hard in the beginning, not knowing what to do when those fingers would get a little too big, but I learned to push them away, or kick them away, and flash my biggest smile while doing it. I grew confident that I could deal with whoever came along, you know? I was, after all, their goddess on stage. I was in charge of them! I've done some flash dancing, we called it, where they would get an occasional glimpse of pussy during the dance, but only "by accident", since full nudity certainly wasn't allowed. And of course, as the costumes changed, the girls changed. The new young things that came in always had more curves, bigger boobs, and skinny legs, and were willing to do anything for money. They gave stripping a bad name. Yes, we older girls had to step aside and let it happen, but they weren't us. They didn't know how to do it right. They saw a few music videos and thought they were pole queens. Still, you just have to let the art evolve.
I can't let you in the back room, but I'll describe it for you on a typical night, around 8:00 PM. It's New Frigging York, for God's sake. Floor space is at a premium, so don't expect much. Boobies bounce as girls run back and forth, asking to borrow your boa or big hat for the night. Miss Amanda is curling a girl's hair with one hand while putting rouge on another girl! Two bathroom door mirrors have been mounted sideways on the wall, with a plywood table under them, with old, numbered barstools for each of us. We're very sensitive about our stools. They are all we can call our own. The chairs are arranged by number. Each week, you'd sit according to how much you grossed for the past week. Every girl, of course, wanted chair #1! However there was a chair before #1, which they "lovingly" numbered zero. That was my chair. I was always in chair number zero only because I can be so easily squished up against the wall. It seemed like the place for my skinny body, and it was quite a wall! Plywood. Does that even count as real wood? I don't know. We offered countless times to do the work, paint the place, put up some hooks and things, if the management would give us a few dollars for the materials, but it never happened. So on a typical night I'd be naked, putting on makeup, smooshed up against the naked wall. I decided to make it my wall, something good for me, not a problem. I'd thumbtack pictures on the wall out of Cosmo if I thought they could be an idea for a new outfit for someone. I always had a picture of Carol Doda up, the patron saint of strippers, who performed topless in 1964 and completely nude in 1969 in San Francisco. The woman had balls. She was a trailblazer. She is worthy of being displayed every day. Whenever Miss Amanda spotted Carol she'd start telling us stories of burlesque days and the Condor Club. They were just her memories, but some of our best shows were based on ideas that came from her stories. Art lives on!
The first day I was performed, I found a carpenter's pencil and drew a line deep into the plywood, to remember that day.
The first time I had a $500 day, I drew a line on the plywood, above the first. On the first Monday of every month, I would touch the first line, and recite the date and event. Then I would move up to the second line. It was my way of recording turning points, and to keep my life fresh in my mind, since Grammy told me the worst thing you can do is make the same mistake twice.
You'd probably see Ed walk through our little room. It's embarrassing that, as good as he was to us all, we all only knew him as Ed - never thought he might have a full name like the rest of us. He was the House Father, if there was such a title - the bouncer, our drunk handler, and street barker. He could read a lone gentleman from a block away and come up with just the right thing to say, to make him stop and turn into The Strip Shop. They all wanted a reason to come in, but most wouldn't on their own. So he'd tell them about a special performer of the night, or about the chance to spend some time with a pretty lady who likes tall men, or maybe just to provide them with the alibi they wanted - just stop in for a drink!
"The girls love to perform for you. These girls could be acting in Hollywood, but this is what they want to do. Make them feel appreciated, would you please?"
He barked when he needed, he talked like a friend when it's what they needed. He was our Ed. He also knew when tits were peaking in the back room and it was always when he just had to "cut through".
I made the third line on my wall the day after my first softball game. Yes, strip joints have softball teams! I must admit we were pretty good. We always looked forward to playing the Blue Boys, the team from the homosexual strip joint. We would just laugh the whole time, watching boys swing and throw like girls. Our laughing would make them laugh. We looked like a bunch of drunken ex-lovers who decided to have one last softball game. We'd hug them and they'd pinch our bottoms, and we'd flash them when they were supposed to be watching the ball. They gave us such a sense of relaxation and freedom - God bless their oiled little bodies.
I had a few lines on my wall for what seemed important events at the time, but within a week they weren't so special - like the first time I danced topless. The seventh line on my wall, one that I recited and relived the first Monday of every month, was longer than the others. He came into the Shop one night around 11 PM. He made it known he was from Milwaukee, looking to settle and start a business in the City. He flashed some money around and quickly got the best table. He wasn't necessarily good looking, but money makes them look better, and he was certainly smooth if nothing else. He was particularly attentive to me, and was slipping 20's into my G-string which lusciously clashed with the one's. He whispered in my ear, "You take my breath away." I looked into his eyes, and could tell he was sincere. His smile was so attractive, so genuine. Between sets he bought me drinks. This was at a time when the management realized they could make a lot of money on alcohol, so put up "Hey honey, can I buy you a drink?" signs in the bathrooms, and encouraged the clientele to treat their favorite dancer with some champagne (available by the bottle only, of course). He was happy to do so, although I was working and wasn't supposed to touch it. Maybe I did taste test it a little more than I should have.
He was addictive. He never actually asked for sex. He just smelled like sex with him would be heavenly. His hand on my arm made me feel warm down there.
"Please come back to my hotel room with me. I'm so alone. Just a short visit. I have a television! We can have a drink and relax, watch some TV. I so enjoy being with you. It will be nice to have company." He was good. He described all the things that I wanted. I wanted to be pampered a little; wanted to take a night off for a change; wanted to kick off my shoes, watch TV and have a drink, and yes, there's always the fantasy that this could be the one, the real deal. He handed me $400 as we walked out the door, and put his finger to my lips before I could object, before I could ask what it was for. As we strolled down the street he slipped his arm around my waist and I felt so good. This was so right. He was the perfect gentleman as he held his room door open for me. When it closed, the first punch sent me flying across the room. I knew that was gonna leave a mark. I don't remember much after that, just bits and pieces of him grunting, pumping me with his little cock, then some of the others. I think, just like he'd promised me a special time, he'd promised a little something special to a few male hotel staff, who happily took what was offered, then held me up against the wall and beat me and beat me and picked me up when I collapsed so he could hit me some more - all in silence. There was not a word of why. The staff then efficiently threw me into one of the dumpsters in the back alley. I think that night he decided that New York City was the place for him.
Perhaps you can't understand, but my first and biggest feeling was not anger, but embarrassment. I didn't want to tell anyone what happened, but I had little choice. Nobody wants to see this many bruises - not the girls, not the clientele. I was shocked when someone first used the word rape. It was my stupid mistake. I trusted him. My mistake. But yes . . . it was rape. I can be important enough to myself to call it rape. My saying the word was the start of my becoming stronger. I wouldn't report it, for fear of being killed, but I found enough of myself left to label it. Still, I was just a stupid colored girl. That's how I felt inside.
I was certain that no one wanted to see a black and blue stripper. There probably isn't much of a crowd waiting to see a pregnant stripper either, I assumed. Yes, I'd gotten more than bruises from my stupidity. As my bruises healed, my belly grew. Jack, the manager, felt uncomfortable when I asked to do a set, but he agreed. Stripping was what I did. It's how I paid the bills! Plus, I had to go back. If I didn't, HE'd have beaten my soul. Jack didn't like his girls to ever be hurt in any way, and probably even would have let me buy paint, if I'd asked with my belly sticking out! Instead of trying to talk me out of it, he ran out the front door. The Barker man went to work!
"The only stripper in town brave enough to let you see her naked pregnant body, and we have her! It won't last forever folks! This is something you'll be telling the boys about around the water cooler! Hell, this is something you'll tell your grandkids about!"
And, thanks to big mouth, I actually developed quite a following. As the music would start, the spotlight would focus on the ratty velvet curtain at one end of the stage. I'd start to come out, always belly first, and they would cheer! So many men, daddies for sure, would put an extra $5 in my G-string and whisper "A little something extra for the kid," with the sweetest looks on their faces. They cared about me. The bar stocked a drink called "Baby Faced", which clients could buy to have a drink with me. It was a pitcher of orange juice, and a bottle of whiskey (for the man to add to his). They made more on juice then the bottles of cheap champagne they were selling.
Ed was right. It didn't last forever. In answer to my prayers, sweet Jesus lovingly blessed me with a stillbirth. I was so relieved. I named her Julie, and as soon as I did she became real, and I sobbed, and I begged for her forgiveness, and begged my Lord to never do anything I ask for again, ever. All I could see were tiny baby faces, and tiny baby fingers, in my mind. I made myself small and stayed there. After weeks of self-isolation, there was a knock on the door. It was Ed. He handed me a ratty book called "Get in Shape in 30 Days". He took my face in his hands and said “She died. You’re alive. We need you back now. They’ve been asking for you. Find any reason you need to come back. Live for yourself. Live for her.” Then he reached behind him, pulled a softball out of somewhere, threw it to me, and left - no hug, no smile, no words of encouragement. He’d said what needed to. He knew not to help. He knew I had to do this alone.
I spent a night saying goodbye to those images of little fingers. They just wouldn’t wrap around a ball. I started to picture all the loving faces who gave me extra money “for the little one”, and swore that I would make it right with them. I knew I had to do this. My life was not going to become a series of bad turning points. I was better than that. My Grammy taught me so. “Even when you got nothing, girl,” she’d say, “you got your strength. Use it.” I’d just forgotten for a minute. And so I worked with that stupid book, worked for a killer body, better’n before. I knew my goal, because the first game was ten days away - a ball game in the real world - a ball game in my world. Mine!
And so, through a door built with sit-ups and push-ups and jumping jacks, I pulled myself from out of the shadows and into the light that felt . . . different . . . but good.
For some reason, Ed wanted to give me a new stage name, so he called me Betsy Ross. "Your flag pole will never be the same, my friend, my countryman!" he'd yell, as he ambled around in front of the place. Too funny. My first day back, tummy tighter than ever, I watched lots of my regulars come in. I peeked through the curtain as they took their usual seats. When the music started I stripped down, fast! They whooped when they saw me in a G-string and a big, filled (!) lacey bra. As I danced around the center stage, I told my regulars to reach into that bra for their present. Their eyes got wide, and I got a big smile from all of ‘em, as they found that it was filled with rolled-up $5 bills, each with a little pink ribbon tied around it. On every bill, I wrote, "bless you". I was giving something back to as many of them as I could. I couldn't ever return the love I felt, but it was a start.
Do you understand how much family love you can feel in this job? Those on the outside just thought of us as dirty, degrading exotic dancers. It's too bad they don't know how much the performers and the regulars become such a close family - always there for you. It is true that New York City had become quite a stripper Mecca, and since we attracted people with "vices", an unsavory crowd slowly grew around our street. The pushers came in. The first sign of that was when drink sales went down and the smell of pot went up. Crime did go up in the area, as local thugs would roll our clients (on the way in, when they still had money). I'm sure there was a little Puerto Rican boy, who owned a big knife, not far from here, who paid cash for a used Cadillac, and counted out the money, all in one's.
Rudy Giuliani. Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Perhaps he did the right thing. He decided to clean up New York City which meant get rid of us. He declared all adult establishments a threat to public health, safety and welfare, and said we made New York City sleazy. Rules were passed, ordinances they called ‘em, which said that no adult establishments could operate within 500 feet of a residence, school, or place of worship. There were ratty high-rise apartments above all of our places. And so they started to shut us down - the strip clubs, the adult movie theatres, and the stores. Some said Mr. Giuliani Disney-fied Times Square, and while everyone in the business was fit to be tied, I knew it was the right thing. It was too bad for the strippers and the go-go boys, who really had no other skills to fall back on. But, hey, I was a taxpayer too, baby. This hurt New York! It took a few years to chase us out, and we were among the last to leave.
Even before we got our final eviction notice, the Shop had become more of a bar with dancing girls than a strip joint with a liquor license. It was over and everyone knew it. Most of the girls stopped showing up altogether, but I came every night, whether we did a show or not, and touched the lines on the wall, and recited every turning point in my life, including the line I'd drawn in for tomorrow, when we would be out of business. When the time came to go, I turned up the music ("Girls, Girls, Girls" - God, how we grew to hate Motley Crue), turned up the lights, and I slowly swung a wide circle on my pole. Miss Amanda leaned on the wall and watched. When the electrician walked by I slid a screwdriver out of his belt, got up on a chair and took the screws out of the plate that held the dance pole to the ceiling. Then I pushed it over. Surprisingly, I found myself sobbing and crying as I pushed and pushed, until the screws in the floor creaked and gave way. Just as the pole fell, the power went out, the room went quiet, with only a few worker lights remaining on. As we walked out the door, I hugged and kissed Miss Amanda, and turned back for one last look. The pole was gone. It wasn't a strip club any more.
I noticed that the carpenter was standing in front of my wall! Gently he eased it off the 2x4's it was nailed to. I stood by the door and watched as he hauled it out past me and hung it onto the store front, boarding it up. All the bars and stores on the whole block - all boarded up. Time there had stopped.
I didn't like unemployment, so I looked hard for a job every day. It kills your savings account, and I had a pretty good one going for a while! I printed my resume on business cards. They had my name on the front and said "ex-stripper" on the back. It made people smile, which made them talk. I did, after all, have some schmooze abilities!
For three years, I moved around, mostly as a Kelly Girl, working a few months in an office here or there, then a few months stuffing envelopes in a cold warehouse, then, I don't remember, it was a blur. One Monday morning, I picked up an old, dog-eared copy of the Sunday Times and read an article about how there was a block on 42nd Street of boarded up storefronts, and some local artist had been hired to brighten it all up. So he painted each one a bright primary color, so the one-block walk wouldn't be depressing, but "uplifting" for visitors who wandered around Times Square. The article reported that the block still sits, still painted but a little less bright and shiny, undeveloped, three years later. The writer wondered if anyone would ever risk trying to reinvent this real estate. The city was even willing to help! There was also a story from San Francisco. A new idea was sweeping the Bay Area - New Wave Burlesque Halls. They were classy, upscale, modern, rooted in the basics of pure Burlesque, but updated with smart new looks, intelligent humor, and magic! Low on the strip, big on the tease! And fun! As soon as I saw "Neo-Burlesque", in the time it took to read the phrase, I knew exactly how I was going to do it. It would be fantastic - not a place for drunks, but for hip couples and groups. And not cheap either! There would be no walk-ins. You'd have to buy tickets for this one, baby. We were going theatre! I remembered a Miss Amanda story of a girl named Charmion, and I looked her up because I thought her act would be a great classic to recreate! She was actually in vaudeville, a trapeze artist, and Thomas Edison made a movie of her way back in 1901 called the Trapeze Disrobing Act. Is that sweet or what? I didn't know who to turn to so I found a lawyer who helped me write up a business plan. I found Miss Amanda, my bottomless pit for the history of Burlesque. I found Ed, who now had a job as a machinist, who knew about how to run an entertainment business in New York. He'd done everything from working with distributors, running a loading dock, maintaining stock - all the things he did by day; to being a people mover - a schmoozer to the kind, and a bouncer to the ornery - at night. He was a licensed bartender too! Once we talked, I had no idea how much he actually had done! Both agreed to help me, if I could get money to buy a space and hire a staff, and we all agreed that The Strip Shop and the store next to it was a pretty nice little starting point, with ample floor space, high walls, and what was probably, at one time, a beautiful bar and kitchen.
I was 40 minutes early for my appointment at the bank, and practically peed my pants, I was so excited, as I made my presentation to two of the staff. They listened like they had no face muscles. It was hard to go on, but they had to loan me money. This was a great idea, a sure thing! After I was done, they thanked me. I expected them to go out in the hall and probably talk about the Yankees for five minutes before they came back in to tell me they couldn't help, but it's not the way it went down. I finished. The suit on the left wrote something on the back of a business card, slid it over to the suit on the right who nodded. Then he slid it across the table to me. It was an amount, with a big check mark after it. It was everything I asked for plus 10%. They stood up (so I did as well, not sure why). The suit on the left broke into the warmest smile I'd ever seen. He (professionally) gave me a hug, told me he wished he had 5% of my energy and excitement, and the suit on the right gave me his business card and told me to call him in 24 hours to get the account set up, and the contract signed. He thanked me for picking them, and said that they were excited to be part of re-energizing Times Square. Only a few years ago, we were a blight in the neighborhood. Now a burlesque house was going to be part of "re-energizing Times Square!" They didn't know how I'd managed to line up such an amazing staff, but with them in place, it was a sure-fire investment for them! If I were white I would have run out in the street and thrown my hat up in the Minneapolis air!
The Strip Shop (possible new name Bottoms Up Burlesque) was mine! I walked 14 blocks back to 42nd Street. I'd not seen it since. I stopped in a goofy little junk/hardware store that had old tools in the window, and bought a used crowbar. There was some young kid behind the counter who claimed it was a valuable collectible antique. I handed him a ten, and he took it, and without expression, he reached under the counter and slapped down two ratty workman's gloves (they must have been a set). Then he went back to reading a magazine. I tried on my new fashion statements, and they fit! Off I went.
So there I was. The storefront had been painted red - nothing fancy, just a fingernail-polish red. I could see, under the thick coat of cheap paint, faint indentations in the wood. My lines. My diary. My turning points. My finger slid slowly over the first one as I started to recite the history I knew so well. After that, I was going to oh-so-gently remove my wall and take it inside, because it was a part of me and I just wanted it!
I must have been quite a sight, caressing painted plywood on a boarded up storefront with my only "business suit" and a starched white blouse on, my worn leather bag on my left shoulder and a crowbar in my right hand. If that wasn't enough, the brown leather work gloves clashed with my dark blue suit! I was still absolutely soaring from my meeting at the bank. I was now a businesswoman, ready to hire my staff! And I was ready for this. I was a different person now. I felt strong.
The sight of him, as he turned the corner, shattered my moment of pride, my moment of joy. Now moving slowly with a cane, he walked in my direction. I was sure he wouldn't even know who I was. When he was six steps away, I reached into my bag and released the safety on my handgun. I'd bought it after he assaulted me, and always had it with me. My little 9 mm bodyguard! When he was five steps away, I imagined taking aim and pulling the trigger. When he was four steps away, I decided that this gun was never me. I choose a better life. This is my decision.
Let him go.
Let him pass by.
I didn't get this far to throw it all away.
At three steps he looked at me, a stranger to him, smiled and said, "you take my breath away." I actually started to feel something, the feeling of melting into his smooth line, a line he'd used on me years ago.
He violated me.
What he did to me was unspeakable.
How many other women had taken his breath away?
How many more will there be?
When he was two steps away, I reset the safety, and let the pistol slide out of my hand and back into my bag. I calmly and deliberately took my best batter's stance, both hands in place at one end of the crowbar. One step away - it was my best homerun swing - going for the left field wall. I swung through his fat head. I heard the crack of the cranium, and was amazed at the speed at which his head and aging body flew, almost two feet! His head stopped when it hit the dumpster that was on the edge of the sidewalk.
"Did that take your breath away, asshole?" I asked. He didn't respond.
His fresh blood was a perfect match for the cheap, fading paint.
His body had crumbled onto the sidewalk and his head flopped over the curb, with his blood nicely draining into the sewer grate. He looked good. I bet that one will leave a mark!
I realized I was shaking. I ran over to my plywood wall and slammed the crowbar into it, making one large gouge above my other turning point marks. Blood ran into the gouge as it blended into the paint, disappearing from casual view. It was magic. It was a sign from Saint Carol.
The sound - people running, shoes against cement, people yelling,
"I saw her, stop her!"
I strained to hear the sound, but I didn't. There was only silence. I looked around. The street was empty except for a small group headed in the opposite direction. I spotted the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket, threw it down the sewer grate, and watched its shadow rush off with the flowing water. If his wallet was missing, they'd assume he'd been robbed. My mind raced - what to do with my sweet metal bat? I looked at it, and realized that these gloves were so soft; I'd forgotten I'd been wearing them. No prints, only his red blood cells on the crowbar, which I just dropped beside him.
I slipped the gloves into my bag and went down the nearest subway steps. As I got to the bottom I thought I heard a woman's scream from the sidewalk. I thought of my Grammy and silently explained to her that I chose not to shoot him. "I made that choice," I told her. "In the end, I did what I had to do. I won't feel guilty about it. I promise Grammy, I won't make the same mistake twice - but I did allow myself to make it once."
Let him pass by.
I didn't get this far to throw it all away.
At three steps he looked at me, a stranger to him, smiled and said, "you take my breath away." I actually started to feel something, the feeling of melting into his smooth line, a line he'd used on me years ago.
He violated me.
What he did to me was unspeakable.
How many other women had taken his breath away?
How many more will there be?
When he was two steps away, I reset the safety, and let the pistol slide out of my hand and back into my bag. I calmly and deliberately took my best batter's stance, both hands in place at one end of the crowbar. One step away - it was my best homerun swing - going for the left field wall. I swung through his fat head. I heard the crack of the cranium, and was amazed at the speed at which his head and aging body flew, almost two feet! His head stopped when it hit the dumpster that was on the edge of the sidewalk.
"Did that take your breath away, asshole?" I asked. He didn't respond.
His fresh blood was a perfect match for the cheap, fading paint.
His body had crumbled onto the sidewalk and his head flopped over the curb, with his blood nicely draining into the sewer grate. He looked good. I bet that one will leave a mark!
I realized I was shaking. I ran over to my plywood wall and slammed the crowbar into it, making one large gouge above my other turning point marks. Blood ran into the gouge as it blended into the paint, disappearing from casual view. It was magic. It was a sign from Saint Carol.
The sound - people running, shoes against cement, people yelling,
"I saw her, stop her!"
I strained to hear the sound, but I didn't. There was only silence. I looked around. The street was empty except for a small group headed in the opposite direction. I spotted the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket, threw it down the sewer grate, and watched its shadow rush off with the flowing water. If his wallet was missing, they'd assume he'd been robbed. My mind raced - what to do with my sweet metal bat? I looked at it, and realized that these gloves were so soft; I'd forgotten I'd been wearing them. No prints, only his red blood cells on the crowbar, which I just dropped beside him.
I slipped the gloves into my bag and went down the nearest subway steps. As I got to the bottom I thought I heard a woman's scream from the sidewalk. I thought of my Grammy and silently explained to her that I chose not to shoot him. "I made that choice," I told her. "In the end, I did what I had to do. I won't feel guilty about it. I promise Grammy, I won't make the same mistake twice - but I did allow myself to make it once."
Friday, July 26, 2013
"For Fás Sake" by Keith O'Brian (Short Story)
Genre: Humor
Type of Short Story: Short Story
Story:
There was four people waiting, I was fifth in the queue the little snowman shaped woman in the small, extremely untidy office told me. It looked like a cross between Hiroshima and a paper recycling centre. ‘Organised chaos’, she said with a cheeky wink. I smiled back. This was my first ever experience being in a social welfare office. It was as majestic as I had been led to believe it would be. Talk about a dreary gut wrenchingly depressing place. A strange smell of disinfectant which came from a filthy mop and bucket that looked as if it had done as much work in the last few months as I had filled my nostrils. After a few moments it began to annoy me just ever so slightly. I took my form from the counter along with a complimentary pen (how kind) and I slowly shuffled back towards an empty hard plastic chair. It had a small crack in the back that pinched my t-shirt whenever I sat back into it. Feckin’yoke. I moved to another seat to continue filling out my forms. The wobbly leg on it was marginally less irritating than the last. Suppose it was the lesser of the two evils.
The filling out of this form, mind numbingly boring as it was, was made ever more challenging by a strangely loud flickering of the light above me coupled with the chattering of two Polish (well I’m guessing Polish) men. They were the size of fried freezers so im guessing they’re some sort of Russian expats. Why did they have to speak so loud? I stood up to have a look at the notice board across from me. From the complete mess that was posted on this I’m guessing that the woman in the office had had a hand in its design. Endless lists of courses were posted all over a graffiti covered corkboard. It’s a bad state of affairs when the graffiti was the most interesting part of it! I chuckled to myself as I noticed the irony of a childish cartoon drawing of a cock scribbled in between a poster warning against STI’s (why this was here I’ve no idea but I came to the conclusion that it was no work and all play) and a local funeral directors. I wonder did they draw the cock first and then the posters followed?
‘Hope yer not laughin at my cock?’, a voice said behind me. I turned around to see Dan, a lad I knew from my school days, standing there.
‘Jayzis Dan, hows tricks?’, I asked him.
‘Can’t complain mate’, he said in a voice that didn’t quite fit his appearance. You see he was a small fat Arabian looking lad who spoke with a thick cultchie accent. His parents must have bought him or something as they were as pale as a couple of emo teenagers. Persian Dan we called him at school. Well we called him a lot of things but Persian Dan was the name that stuck. I don’t know if anyone ever called him that to his face? He probably couldn’t care less anyways. The style of the gear he had on him today was a treasure to behold. It honestly had to be seen to be believed. He always had a strange sense of style that made him looked like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder had being playing “pin the tail” with him. Sandals, socks (of course), football shorts and a Status Quo vest was the irresistable ensemble he had chosen today. This crazy looking getup was topped off with a sort of comb-over mullet. It really was a sight that had o be seen to be believed. There have been escaped loonies with better style sense than this lad.
He took his form and we sat down.
‘Fuckin’ chairs pinching me back fat’, he said loudly. An old man at the seat next to us spat out his tea and chuckled to himself.
‘What course ye doin?’, I asked Dan.
‘Dont really care mate, I just do them to get the few bob. I’ve been on more courses than Tiger Woods’, he said in that dry humour I had forgotten he used to perfection. ‘Don’t know why I have to fill these out’, he said in an irritated fashion. ‘I’ve been coming here that long I get invited to the staff parties’. A smile crept across his face. ‘Irony at its finest’, he said laughing, ‘to get invited to the staff party ye’d have to work and’, he said nudging me with his elbow,’ the only job I’ve ever managed to get is a blowjob!’ We both laughed loudly. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, I thought to myself.
The door in the entrance opened slowly with a loud squeak that sounded like a cat in a blender. Does nothing in this place look or sound the way it was intended to? In walked four men, a small little fat man, a slightly taller slimmer man, a tall bulky fella and then a man the size of a decent sized wardrobe. Standing in the queue they looked like a depiction of the evolution of man.
We were then all herded into another room and told to sit down at a table and fill out yet another form. This room was another plain box room with cheap laminated tables covered in scratched on little memories from past visitors. On the walls hung the most hilarious pieces of inspirational sayings printed out by the snowman in the office no doubt. I’m sure all these quick little information gathering forms would be so much more relevant to our job search had we all not filled them in together so the lads who couldn’t read or who didn’t speak English had theirs done too. A tall slender man with big round Oasis in the 90’s style glasses stood in a non tailored suit that hung from him as if he had lost weight recently and kept wearing it. He looked as enthusiastic as the rest of us. He droned on in a dull, lethargic manner and sighed heavily after every short sequence of sentences. I wondered if he’d of been better off filling out one of these magic forms that were going to help us find “a job we deserve”. I didn’t want to suggest it to him. Well it was my first day.
He handed us yet another personalised form. Please answer all questions to the best of your abilities the form read.
‘And lads, don’t spend forever on it, we haven’t got all day!” he said in an angry and disgruntled manner.
‘Sure what else are we gonna be doing Alan, the bookies and pub doesn’t open til after lunch!” Dan shouted out from our table. We laughed. Alan didn’t.
‘Less of your chat today Osama’ he quipped back as quick as a flash.
‘Osama? ” I questioned to Dan. ’Surely that’s a bit racist? No? I asked but didn’t really think it was racist. It was hilarious and so unexpected from a man who looked as humorous as a bipolar suffering undertaker.
‘That’s what he calls me. Osama Bone Idle’ he said laughing as he told me. A loud laugh escaped my mouth quicker than I could control it, it filled the room. It deserved a laugh. Meeting Dan could be the break I needed to catch.
The form was as intellectually challenging as a kids join the dots game. Seriously, what could this achieve? The only question I found to be remotely interesting was; describe yourself in five words. I struggled to think of something to write down for a few moments and decided to glance over at Dan’s form. He was scribbling away without even pausing. Must be all the practice he has gotten over the past few years. I glanced at his “five words” question. A wave of laughter started in my stomach sending a shudder through my chest that began rattling my shoulders. I didn’t even attempt to hide it this time. I couldn’t. The tears cascaded down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and glanced at Dan’s form again to double check what I’d read. His answer read; Overweight, underachiever. Say no more!
‘Honesty, thats what they wanted’ he said throwing out a wink and a smile. I went for a slightly more subdued and generic answer. Honest, reliable, determined, punctual and hardworking.
‘Its supposed to be honest’ Dan said nodding his head towards my answer.
‘Fuck off. It is’ I snapped back arguably but to no avail. I wondered if everyone had been as honest?
‘Right lads, sure we’ll call that elevenses’ said Alan.
‘Lovely’ Dan said as he began rolling a smoke. He looked around shiftily and produced a small bag of weed. ‘Its for my glaucoma’ he said blinking his eyes continuously as if trying to convince me.
‘Yeah’ I said back sounding unconvinced at his explanation. ‘Think I might be getting a touch of that too’ I said and also began blinking. He laughed as he threw in some more medicinal smoke.
We went out to a small area at the back of the centre that looked like a beer garden in a pretty rough pub. The wooden picnic tables shook and wobbled as we sat down. The group split into smaller groups and struck up conversations between themselves.
‘Thats the Warsaw Pact’ Dan said nodding towards a group of men that were so big even sitting down they looked like a mountain range. ‘Over there is the redundancy brigade, he pointed towards a group of elderly men (well mid fifties) sitting together with their glasses on doing their crosswords and Sudoku puzzles. ‘They’re grand and always good for a tip for the horses too. ‘Any info for me today Tony?’ Dan shouted across at one of them.
‘Just studying the form I’ll let you know in a few alright’ he shouted back.
Lovely’ Dan said rubbing his hands together as if trying to warm them on a cold morning. ‘Hopefully thatl pay off and we’ll have enough for a few cheeky after “work” scoops!’ he said with an excited tone in his voice.
After the smoke break we headed back in slightly buzzed and drained after the smoke. The pace in which we all sauntered back in slightly annoyed Alan who grunted at us to hurry up.
‘Right lads, yez are going to have to watch this DVD while I have a look over these forms. Try give it a bit of your attention, if it’s not too much trouble he said again sounding so underwhelmed with life. I couldn’t blame him really. His job is to help find a job for those who don’t want a job. What a thankless task!
An ex Fair City actor was now on screen taking us through the main points of finding a new job. I sat and wondered how bad an actor he must of been to be now considered an “ex” fair city (ahem) “star”. It was slightly annoying me. My mind had now wandered off. I looked at Dan, he looked like his mind was still sitting outside at the table! So this was how he got through these manic depressive days.
‘Watch this, I love this bit, it gets me every time’ he said pointing to his chest. The actor on screen looked deep into the camera, at us, and said ‘remember, always believe in yourself’. Dan was chuckling. ‘Fuckin’ clown!’ he should be here with us . ‘Has he even got a job?’ Dan shouted up at Alan.
‘Dya have to ask every time Dan’ he said through a mixture of gritted teeth and a loud bemused sigh.
‘Guarantee he’s a Rockinroller like the rest of us here! Believe in yourself. Gobshite’ Dan ranted along. Those of us that understood English and his cultchie accent laughed. These inspirational videos and testimonials continued for the rest of the afternoon. It worked though. We felt inspired (tongue in cheek) and were ready to decide what course we were going to enrol on. Dan and I opted for the warehouse course. How testing could this be?
As lunchtime approached, Alan began talking again and after putting down his stack of completed forms called Dan aside for a quick chat
‘I need to talk to you in the office for a quick sec Dan’ he said in a calm yet unnerving undertone. He cleared his throat and dismissed the rest of us for the day. Apparently we had done enough. Dan rose gingerly from his seat, still carrying that air of confidence in him but yet this time looking slightly more vulnerable. A sense of fear crept slowly across his face as the colour drained from it like water slowly escaping down a plughole.
I walked back out to the main entrance of the building and sat down on a small little wooden bench just outside the front door. I waited there for Dan as we had arranged to celebrate our first days work with a couple of sociable drinks. As the minutes rolled by I began to wonder what had happened to Dan. I laughed to myself as I thought to myself, how bad would it be if he had managed to get fired from a Fás course?
About twenty minutes had passed until Dan emerged from the building looking sunken and shocked. His voice crackled just a little bit as he said ‘Its over man, its finally over!’
‘Over’ I questioned.
’Yeah, the sneaky whores have managed to find me a feckin’ job and I have to take it or they’ll stop my dole! Disaster!’ He expelled a huge gasp of hair and rubbed his face with his hands. ‘I need a drink, and quickly’ he said and we got going to the nearest watering hole.
Pint after pint were slung down the hatch and as the room began to move and sway like elderly couples in a ballroom we began to instigate a mixture of singing and what can only be described as growling from Dan. Other patrons were horrified as we murdered song after song (well we tried our best). As the drink took its toll and the singing became faint and inaudible Dan sang a little tune that perfectly summed up his situation. To the tune of ‘On the road again’ by Wille Nelson, Dan sang his version, ‘On the Dole again, I can’t wait to be on the Dole again, I can’t wait to be signing on with my friends, I can’t wait to be on the Dole again’. We fell around laughing as we wandered through the pub car park and as we said our goodbyes it finally dawned on me that I was losing the friend that had gotten me through the day. A heavy sadness came across me as we hugged and as we walked away in different directions he shouted ‘Dont worry I’ll be back!
Type of Short Story: Short Story
Story:
There was four people waiting, I was fifth in the queue the little snowman shaped woman in the small, extremely untidy office told me. It looked like a cross between Hiroshima and a paper recycling centre. ‘Organised chaos’, she said with a cheeky wink. I smiled back. This was my first ever experience being in a social welfare office. It was as majestic as I had been led to believe it would be. Talk about a dreary gut wrenchingly depressing place. A strange smell of disinfectant which came from a filthy mop and bucket that looked as if it had done as much work in the last few months as I had filled my nostrils. After a few moments it began to annoy me just ever so slightly. I took my form from the counter along with a complimentary pen (how kind) and I slowly shuffled back towards an empty hard plastic chair. It had a small crack in the back that pinched my t-shirt whenever I sat back into it. Feckin’yoke. I moved to another seat to continue filling out my forms. The wobbly leg on it was marginally less irritating than the last. Suppose it was the lesser of the two evils.
The filling out of this form, mind numbingly boring as it was, was made ever more challenging by a strangely loud flickering of the light above me coupled with the chattering of two Polish (well I’m guessing Polish) men. They were the size of fried freezers so im guessing they’re some sort of Russian expats. Why did they have to speak so loud? I stood up to have a look at the notice board across from me. From the complete mess that was posted on this I’m guessing that the woman in the office had had a hand in its design. Endless lists of courses were posted all over a graffiti covered corkboard. It’s a bad state of affairs when the graffiti was the most interesting part of it! I chuckled to myself as I noticed the irony of a childish cartoon drawing of a cock scribbled in between a poster warning against STI’s (why this was here I’ve no idea but I came to the conclusion that it was no work and all play) and a local funeral directors. I wonder did they draw the cock first and then the posters followed?
‘Hope yer not laughin at my cock?’, a voice said behind me. I turned around to see Dan, a lad I knew from my school days, standing there.
‘Jayzis Dan, hows tricks?’, I asked him.
‘Can’t complain mate’, he said in a voice that didn’t quite fit his appearance. You see he was a small fat Arabian looking lad who spoke with a thick cultchie accent. His parents must have bought him or something as they were as pale as a couple of emo teenagers. Persian Dan we called him at school. Well we called him a lot of things but Persian Dan was the name that stuck. I don’t know if anyone ever called him that to his face? He probably couldn’t care less anyways. The style of the gear he had on him today was a treasure to behold. It honestly had to be seen to be believed. He always had a strange sense of style that made him looked like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder had being playing “pin the tail” with him. Sandals, socks (of course), football shorts and a Status Quo vest was the irresistable ensemble he had chosen today. This crazy looking getup was topped off with a sort of comb-over mullet. It really was a sight that had o be seen to be believed. There have been escaped loonies with better style sense than this lad.
He took his form and we sat down.
‘Fuckin’ chairs pinching me back fat’, he said loudly. An old man at the seat next to us spat out his tea and chuckled to himself.
‘What course ye doin?’, I asked Dan.
‘Dont really care mate, I just do them to get the few bob. I’ve been on more courses than Tiger Woods’, he said in that dry humour I had forgotten he used to perfection. ‘Don’t know why I have to fill these out’, he said in an irritated fashion. ‘I’ve been coming here that long I get invited to the staff parties’. A smile crept across his face. ‘Irony at its finest’, he said laughing, ‘to get invited to the staff party ye’d have to work and’, he said nudging me with his elbow,’ the only job I’ve ever managed to get is a blowjob!’ We both laughed loudly. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, I thought to myself.
The door in the entrance opened slowly with a loud squeak that sounded like a cat in a blender. Does nothing in this place look or sound the way it was intended to? In walked four men, a small little fat man, a slightly taller slimmer man, a tall bulky fella and then a man the size of a decent sized wardrobe. Standing in the queue they looked like a depiction of the evolution of man.
We were then all herded into another room and told to sit down at a table and fill out yet another form. This room was another plain box room with cheap laminated tables covered in scratched on little memories from past visitors. On the walls hung the most hilarious pieces of inspirational sayings printed out by the snowman in the office no doubt. I’m sure all these quick little information gathering forms would be so much more relevant to our job search had we all not filled them in together so the lads who couldn’t read or who didn’t speak English had theirs done too. A tall slender man with big round Oasis in the 90’s style glasses stood in a non tailored suit that hung from him as if he had lost weight recently and kept wearing it. He looked as enthusiastic as the rest of us. He droned on in a dull, lethargic manner and sighed heavily after every short sequence of sentences. I wondered if he’d of been better off filling out one of these magic forms that were going to help us find “a job we deserve”. I didn’t want to suggest it to him. Well it was my first day.
He handed us yet another personalised form. Please answer all questions to the best of your abilities the form read.
‘And lads, don’t spend forever on it, we haven’t got all day!” he said in an angry and disgruntled manner.
‘Sure what else are we gonna be doing Alan, the bookies and pub doesn’t open til after lunch!” Dan shouted out from our table. We laughed. Alan didn’t.
‘Less of your chat today Osama’ he quipped back as quick as a flash.
‘Osama? ” I questioned to Dan. ’Surely that’s a bit racist? No? I asked but didn’t really think it was racist. It was hilarious and so unexpected from a man who looked as humorous as a bipolar suffering undertaker.
‘That’s what he calls me. Osama Bone Idle’ he said laughing as he told me. A loud laugh escaped my mouth quicker than I could control it, it filled the room. It deserved a laugh. Meeting Dan could be the break I needed to catch.
The form was as intellectually challenging as a kids join the dots game. Seriously, what could this achieve? The only question I found to be remotely interesting was; describe yourself in five words. I struggled to think of something to write down for a few moments and decided to glance over at Dan’s form. He was scribbling away without even pausing. Must be all the practice he has gotten over the past few years. I glanced at his “five words” question. A wave of laughter started in my stomach sending a shudder through my chest that began rattling my shoulders. I didn’t even attempt to hide it this time. I couldn’t. The tears cascaded down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and glanced at Dan’s form again to double check what I’d read. His answer read; Overweight, underachiever. Say no more!
‘Honesty, thats what they wanted’ he said throwing out a wink and a smile. I went for a slightly more subdued and generic answer. Honest, reliable, determined, punctual and hardworking.
‘Its supposed to be honest’ Dan said nodding his head towards my answer.
‘Fuck off. It is’ I snapped back arguably but to no avail. I wondered if everyone had been as honest?
‘Right lads, sure we’ll call that elevenses’ said Alan.
‘Lovely’ Dan said as he began rolling a smoke. He looked around shiftily and produced a small bag of weed. ‘Its for my glaucoma’ he said blinking his eyes continuously as if trying to convince me.
‘Yeah’ I said back sounding unconvinced at his explanation. ‘Think I might be getting a touch of that too’ I said and also began blinking. He laughed as he threw in some more medicinal smoke.
We went out to a small area at the back of the centre that looked like a beer garden in a pretty rough pub. The wooden picnic tables shook and wobbled as we sat down. The group split into smaller groups and struck up conversations between themselves.
‘Thats the Warsaw Pact’ Dan said nodding towards a group of men that were so big even sitting down they looked like a mountain range. ‘Over there is the redundancy brigade, he pointed towards a group of elderly men (well mid fifties) sitting together with their glasses on doing their crosswords and Sudoku puzzles. ‘They’re grand and always good for a tip for the horses too. ‘Any info for me today Tony?’ Dan shouted across at one of them.
‘Just studying the form I’ll let you know in a few alright’ he shouted back.
Lovely’ Dan said rubbing his hands together as if trying to warm them on a cold morning. ‘Hopefully thatl pay off and we’ll have enough for a few cheeky after “work” scoops!’ he said with an excited tone in his voice.
After the smoke break we headed back in slightly buzzed and drained after the smoke. The pace in which we all sauntered back in slightly annoyed Alan who grunted at us to hurry up.
‘Right lads, yez are going to have to watch this DVD while I have a look over these forms. Try give it a bit of your attention, if it’s not too much trouble he said again sounding so underwhelmed with life. I couldn’t blame him really. His job is to help find a job for those who don’t want a job. What a thankless task!
An ex Fair City actor was now on screen taking us through the main points of finding a new job. I sat and wondered how bad an actor he must of been to be now considered an “ex” fair city (ahem) “star”. It was slightly annoying me. My mind had now wandered off. I looked at Dan, he looked like his mind was still sitting outside at the table! So this was how he got through these manic depressive days.
‘Watch this, I love this bit, it gets me every time’ he said pointing to his chest. The actor on screen looked deep into the camera, at us, and said ‘remember, always believe in yourself’. Dan was chuckling. ‘Fuckin’ clown!’ he should be here with us . ‘Has he even got a job?’ Dan shouted up at Alan.
‘Dya have to ask every time Dan’ he said through a mixture of gritted teeth and a loud bemused sigh.
‘Guarantee he’s a Rockinroller like the rest of us here! Believe in yourself. Gobshite’ Dan ranted along. Those of us that understood English and his cultchie accent laughed. These inspirational videos and testimonials continued for the rest of the afternoon. It worked though. We felt inspired (tongue in cheek) and were ready to decide what course we were going to enrol on. Dan and I opted for the warehouse course. How testing could this be?
As lunchtime approached, Alan began talking again and after putting down his stack of completed forms called Dan aside for a quick chat
‘I need to talk to you in the office for a quick sec Dan’ he said in a calm yet unnerving undertone. He cleared his throat and dismissed the rest of us for the day. Apparently we had done enough. Dan rose gingerly from his seat, still carrying that air of confidence in him but yet this time looking slightly more vulnerable. A sense of fear crept slowly across his face as the colour drained from it like water slowly escaping down a plughole.
I walked back out to the main entrance of the building and sat down on a small little wooden bench just outside the front door. I waited there for Dan as we had arranged to celebrate our first days work with a couple of sociable drinks. As the minutes rolled by I began to wonder what had happened to Dan. I laughed to myself as I thought to myself, how bad would it be if he had managed to get fired from a Fás course?
About twenty minutes had passed until Dan emerged from the building looking sunken and shocked. His voice crackled just a little bit as he said ‘Its over man, its finally over!’
‘Over’ I questioned.
’Yeah, the sneaky whores have managed to find me a feckin’ job and I have to take it or they’ll stop my dole! Disaster!’ He expelled a huge gasp of hair and rubbed his face with his hands. ‘I need a drink, and quickly’ he said and we got going to the nearest watering hole.
Pint after pint were slung down the hatch and as the room began to move and sway like elderly couples in a ballroom we began to instigate a mixture of singing and what can only be described as growling from Dan. Other patrons were horrified as we murdered song after song (well we tried our best). As the drink took its toll and the singing became faint and inaudible Dan sang a little tune that perfectly summed up his situation. To the tune of ‘On the road again’ by Wille Nelson, Dan sang his version, ‘On the Dole again, I can’t wait to be on the Dole again, I can’t wait to be signing on with my friends, I can’t wait to be on the Dole again’. We fell around laughing as we wandered through the pub car park and as we said our goodbyes it finally dawned on me that I was losing the friend that had gotten me through the day. A heavy sadness came across me as we hugged and as we walked away in different directions he shouted ‘Dont worry I’ll be back!
Friday, July 19, 2013
"Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I)" by Joe Vasicek (Novelette)
Genre: Science Fiction Space Opera
Type of Short Story: Novelette
Summary: HE WANDERS THE STARS IN SEARCH OF A HOME. INSTEAD, HE GOT A GIRL WITHOUT ONE.
When Jeremiah arrived at Megiddo Station, all he wanted was to make some trades and resupply his starship. He never thought he'd come away with a wife.
Before he knows it, he's back on his ship, alone with his accidental bride. Since neither of them speak the same language, he has no way to tell her that there's been a terrible mistake. And because of the deadly famine ravaging her home, there's no going back. She's entirely at his mercy, and that terrifies him more than anything.
Jeremiah isn't ready to take responsibility for anyone. He's a star wanderer, roaming the Outworld frontier in search of his fortune. Someday he'll settle down, but for now, he just wants to drop the girl off at the next port and move on.
As he soon finds out, though, she has other plans.
Excerpt:
Jeremiah knew something was wrong the moment he stepped out of the Ariadne’s airlock and onto Megiddo Station. A variety of people milled about the tiny spaceport concourse, mostly in-system haulers and traders, as well as a few beggars and questionable women in the shadier passageways. The air smelled slightly of smoke, but that wasn’t too unusual; the settlement was certainly old enough, with ventilator fans that chugged and floor tiles that were grainy with wear. The locals, however, had an eerie look about them. Their faces were gaunt, their skin sagging. They stared at him as he passed by, as if sizing him up. When he returned their gaze, they turned suddenly away from him, as if afraid.
I just need to stay long enough to unload my cargo and make the trade, he thought anxiously to himself. Once I’ve gotten clearance, everything else should go smoothly.
The suppliers at the last system had warned him about this place almost a standard month ago. “You be careful,” they had told him in their peculiar Outworld creole. “We many see go, since six cycles not any come back.”
At the time, Jeremiah hadn’t thought much of it. Traders this far out didn’t follow any set routes, and the dozens of uncharted colonies and outposts always had problems of one sort or another. But from the hollow, expressionless faces he passed on his way spinward, an uneasy feeling told him he might have made a mistake.
Like many of the other doorways in the hallway, the entrance to the station master’s office had a miniature gilded image of a half-cyborg saint tacked above the lintel. Jeremiah keyed the chime and the door hissed open almost immediately.
“Come, come!” came a voice from inside, calling to him with urgency. Jeremiah stepped in, door shutting behind him.
“You Captain Jerem-ahra?”
The station master was short and balding, with a rotund face and a minor cybernetic implant in his left eye. He wore a simple blue jumpsuit with a black felt vest and an insignia on his arm that probably denoted his rank. That wasn’t too unusual; most of the settlements in the Outworlds tended to be hierarchical.
“Yes,” said Jeremiah, bowing in a universal gesture of greeting and respect. “Are you Master Korha?”
“Korha? Yes yes,” said the man, gesturing impatiently for him to come inside.
Jeremiah followed Master Korha from the rather sparse front office into a back room that appeared to be the apartment’s main living quarters. Mattresses lined the floor along the aging bulkheads, indicating a sizable family and not much living space. An ornate mosaic table sat on a dull blue rug in the center, with sticks of incense burning in a bowl off to one side. Except for the two of them, the place was empty.
“Sit, sit,” said the station master, motioning to a cushion across the table. It seemed like a strange way to conduct trade negotiations, but these were the Outworlds after all. Jeremiah took his seat and made himself comfortable.
“You young,” Master Korha observed, producing a thermos and two glasses. He poured them both a thick, white drink that had the consistency of syrup.
“Yes,” Jeremiah answered, taking a sip from his glass. The spicy sweetness hit him like a punch to the mouth, and he struggled to force it down.
“Where from?”
“Far,” said Jeremiah, eyes watering. “Many parsecs.”
The station master nodded. “You trader?”
“Of a sort.”
“Man of fortune?”
“You could say that.”
“Searching woman?” he asked, looking Jeremiah in the eye. “Searching home place, find woman and make babies yes yes?”
“Uh…”
“Is tradition, no?”
Jeremiah nodded slowly. “That’s right,” he said, mind racing as he tried to rethink his negotiating strategy. Did the station master expect him to settle down here? Was that why he’d called him to his private quarters? The thought made Jeremiah swallow.
“I, uh—”
“You young, you need woman.”
“Among other things, yes.”
“Not good to man is alone, no no.”
The station master looked off as if lost in thought. Jeremiah took advantage of the moment and cleared his throat.
“As much as I would love to find a wife and settle down, I have some coffee from the Chondarr system that I was hoping to trade, and since you insisted I meet you in person, I—”
“Listen,” Master Korha hissed, glancing over his shoulder before leaning forward to look Jeremiah in the eye. “You no stay here. Not safe.”
Jeremiah frowned. “Not safe? What do you mean?”
“Here is not safe—much is dying, yes yes. Accident since many cycles—no can food to eat. Station crowded, very. Stores run out since many days, many angry, dying much.”
A chill ran down the back of his neck. “You mean the starvation is so bad, the entire outpost is starving to death?”
“Yes yes! Smart young man. Have ship, yes. But cannot stay—very dangerous.”
The gleam in Master Korha’s eyes made him shift uncomfortably on his floor mat.
“Why are you telling me this?”
The station master took a long draft, draining almost half his glass. “You young man, you captain, you go places. Is good, yes. Have favor I ask you.”
He clapped his hands twice, making Jeremiah jump. A side door opened, and five girls lined up in the front of the room. They each wore a loose-fitting chemise made from cheap synthetic fabric that left the shoulders bare while barely stretching to the knees. As Jeremiah looked on, they stared at him with wide, nervous eyes.
“My daughters. You choose, yes yes.”
Jeremiah swallowed hard. “Choose one?”
“Choose one, choose two, choose all no matter. You go, take with. Is good, no?”
This can’t be happening, he thought to himself. His heart pounded in his chest as he glanced from Master Korha to his five daughters and back again.
“Look, let’s not be hasty. My ship doesn’t have any room for extra passengers, and—”
“Aiee!” a voice wailed from behind the door. Jeremiah leaped to his feet as a middle-aged woman barreled past him. Soon, both she and the station master were shouting at each other in their incomprehensible language.
What the hell is going on?
He glanced over at the girls, as if to apologize. The youngest stared at him with wide, frightened eyes; she couldn’t have been older than eight standard years. With her blond hair, she reminded Jeremiah of his younger sister.
“Choose!” Master Korha bellowed. Apparently defeated, his wife collapsed to the floor in tears.
Jeremiah tugged at the collar of his jumpsuit, sweat forming at the back of his neck. “What? Choose?”
“Yes yes—choose quickly, you take, you go!”
“But this is crazy; how can I—”
“If not take, will die. Choose!”
Jeremiah turned back nervously to the girls. The three youngest ones stared at him in absolute terror. The two oldest ones weren’t quite so frightened, but avoided meeting his gaze directly. They wore their long hair down with glistening sequined headbands across their foreheads, and the innocent looks on their faces cried out to him.
Should I take them both? If they were going to die otherwise, it seemed like the right thing to do—but he didn’t know if he could afford to take even one extra passenger on his ship. And besides, the whole situation had an eerily awkward feel to it, as if he were trading in people, not goods.
“You like? You like?” Master Korha asked, ambling to his side. He pulled the two girls forward to give Jeremiah a better look. One of them giggled nervously, while the other bit her lip almost apologetically.
“What the—how can I do this?” Jeremiah asked, raising his hands in protest. “They’re your daughters.”
Behind them, the wife let out an awful wail, but Master Korha waved his hand as if to say ‘pay no attention to her.’
“You choose one, must take, save her yes yes.”
Jeremiah looked into the desperate eyes of the daughters and realized, purely on a gut level, that their father was telling the truth.
“Her,” he said, pointing to the oldest of the two. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth in shock.
“Good! Good!” said Master Korha. He took Jeremiah by the wrists and had him clasp hands with the girl. Her fingers were cold, her palms clammy. Her arms stiffened and trembled, but she held on tight. Jeremiah almost pulled away from her, but her father held him in place, making the sign of the cross across his chest and muttering some arcane prayer in his native language.
All at once, everyone in the room was crying. The mother’s wails sounded above all the others, and she shoved Jeremiah aside, wrapping her arms around her daughter. The other girls soon surrounded them, tears streaking their faces, while Master Korha clucked impatiently and pushed them all away.
“Come, come,” he said, grabbing Jeremiah and the girl by their arms. A moment later, they were in his office, away from all the madness. “You take, you leave, must go now yes yes?”
“But—wait!” said Jeremiah, jerking himself free. “What about my mass allotment? My ship’s not built to carry passengers; I’ll have to recalcu—”
“No problem, no problem, she not bring anything,” said Master Korha. He palmed a console in the wall and a hidden door opened, revealing a long, empty maintenance corridor. “Must go now,” he said, ushering them in. “If not, others soon do bad things, yes yes.”
“Are you serious? What do you—”
As if in response, the sound of fists pounding on the front door echoed through the office. It started out innocently enough, but quickly grew louder, as if an entire mob was trying to break in.
“Come! Come!” said Master Korha, hissing as if to emphasize the point. Jeremiah glanced anxiously around the room and instinctively knew that if he didn’t comply, he would soon be in danger.
“Okay,” he muttered, ducking his head as he climbed into the narrow maintenance shaft. “Whatever you say, old man.”
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