The Great Sage

A lady in a grocery store once told me “your garden is a reflection of your heart.” How could I know I would, in the cereal isle, meet one of the great sages of our day? Well, of course I wanted to have a beautiful heart so ever since I have been devoted to my garden, turning up the hardened rocky soil, the thorny weeds, and the disarray and replacing them with a supple grass, grapes, tomatoes, plums, peaches, strawberries, bright flowers, and figs. (In a side note I always stayed away from the lemons and limes – nobody could accuse me of a sour heart) I even tore down the apple tree when it refused, on threat of death, to produce a sweet fruit.

So you can understand my embarrassment for my neighbor who has more of a barren wasteland than a garden. What a sad sad glimpse into the poor man’s heart. I could bore you with the details of his life, bemoan you with the reasons why he has turned into such a miserable and slovenly man. Instead I will merely give you a glimpse of his garden and allow you to see all that for yourself. Do you see the way his only tree, some wild oak that was standing when he bought the place, has a mold growing on the north side? It’s that greenish-blue hue. The fallen branches lying on the ground like forgotten soldiers. Dandelion springs shooting up like metaphors in a short story. I walked out this morning and saw three tumbleweeds lying about, as if attracted to this mess and needing to be a part of it. I have no doubt that they rolled there on their own free will.

My kingdom for a brick! Or at least a stack of bricks that could separate me from this abomination. Bricks and maybe some cement to glue them together. And some guy (or gal) willing to form those bricks into a wall.

Instead the chain link fence allows me perfect view into his heart of hearts. Take this morning for example. I walk out into my garden and he’s out there with his dog (I won’t go into details about what his dog adds to his garden) and a Frisbee. I’m pruning and shearing and picking and weeding. He’s jumping and laughing and playing and the dog is running and jumping and chasing.

“Hay Richard!” I shout over the fence. I’ll use “Richard” because I want to protect his identity, cause his actual name is Dick.

“What’s up, my man?” he stops what he is doing and walks over to the fence.

He’s never listened to me about this before but I try and try again. “The yard is looking a little bit ratty today. Starting a Tumbleweed collection?” I figure humor may be the best route.

“No, man,” he says, “but ain’t they cool look’n? All round and brown and ready to roll. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have some extra plums, would ya?” I hand him a basket from over the fence that has a little bit of everything. Maybe it will inspire him. “Hay man, I’m super surprised that you don’t own a dog.”

I’d never owned a dog. I told him so.

“But a dog completes you man. A dog is what can make a person whole.”

I ran these words through my head. A…dog…completes…you. I’d never thought about it before. I had a great heart but I knew I was missing something.

Suddenly I was bitter, resentful, and envious. Here was my neighbor, who had been complete this whole time, even if he had such an ugly heart, and there I was, next to him, incomplete, not even a whole man. I felt ashamed.

Nobody would be able to accuse me of being incomplete. The great sage has spoken. It was time to get a dog.

-Steven Mast

Drunk Neighbor Rick

By Marcy

It was early, I was grumpy, and there was my loud, usually drunk neighbor. This morning he looked like Hangover Man, the archnemesis of Party Dude. But I had to ask just to make sure my apartment wasn’t an isolated incident.

“Hey Rick – you have hot water this morning?”

Rick shrugged at me as he ambled to his dirty pickup. “Didn’t check. I shower at night.”

I know, because the pipes squeal and keep me awake. And usually he’s hammered, and can’t hold onto shampoo bottles. They fall from his soapy hands to the tub floor with hollow thuds at regular intervals. Or at least, I’m guessing what the noise is as I lie in bed below his apartment. I’ve never been in the shower with Rick. UGH - I shudder to think about it.

Rick threw a garbage bag into the back of his truck and nodded in my direction. “You should call the landlord if your hot water’s out.”

Thank you, State The Obvious Man. “Yeah, if it’s not fixed by the time I get home from work, I will.” I opened my car door and retrieved my coffee from the roof where I’d set it. At least it was a gorgeous spring day. I could eat my lunch outside, with a book, and no-one would bother me except bugs. And it might even be too early for bugs.

Rick opened his truck door and it creaked with a metallic groan. Some rust fell off of the hinges and clinked onto the pavement. “Wellp, have a good day there, Chad.” He hopped in and turned the motor over, and the door slammed with the falling of more rust.

My name isn’t Chad. It’d Brad. Stupid moron.

His truck backed out of the parking spot and nearly hit my Honda. I thought about yelling for him to watch it but he threw the car into drive just in time and pulled away, peeling out of the parking lot like he was at the start of a drag race. The garbage bag rolled out of the open truck bed and fell to the ground in a cloud of muffler smoke, and a female arm dangled from the opening.

I puked. And then I called the cops. And then I called work to tell them I’d be late.

The cops stayed at our building until it was dark and had sent out an APB on Rick’s truck. They think when he got to wherever he was going to dump her he realized the bag was gone, and he had skipped town. They didn’t think he’d come back – likely set up in another town and start over there. They’d have to wait until he started leaving another trail – apparently they’d been looking for a serial killer who had been dumping women’s bodies in garbage bags all around the city.

That night I curled up in my bed and couldn’t sleep. The fear that Rick would return and come after me for blowing him in was too great. One undercover guy, on lookout, was supposedly parked out front of our building. It didn’t reassure me. But somehow I managed to drift off to sleep, weary from the shock and fear of the day.

I awoke, hours later, to squealing pipes and intermittent hollow thumps from the apartment above me.

Last day

Sorry for the departure from the assignment. I had thoroughly intended to follow it. But this story came out. I think it's because I'm writing full-time again, so Existential Bryan reared his ugly, confusing head.
By Bryan
On the last day of your life, the world moves with you. Thump thump. Sometimes it has to catch up.
The guy next door goes for his paper. Yours is already on the table, spewing stock quotes and personal injury ads in one dusty breath staring dead at the burnt-out kitchen light. The phone rings. Pops. Leave it. Thump thump.
On the last day of your life, seven forks are left in your drawer. You will use four. Drop one on the floor thump thump. You will use three.
The song on the radio has played at the same time every day for the past week but there's an extra note this time, somewhere between losing the love and getting her back. Thump thump.
You lost an argument in your head once, something about washing your feet in the shower and debating the merits and abilities of the washwater to adequately perform its function solo, or does it need the cloth? The vice presidency of bathroom politics is lost to you on the last day of thump thump your life.
And it is then, pausing rigid with spatula under the heat lamp of the stove as your eggs fog over, that you begin to doubt the most-improved singer award from chorus you earned was really yours to own. Pity is fickle, which worked in your favor, but talents need definition or else you'd still be proud you learned to blow smoke rings in college. All this you'd learn in a week but it is the last day of your life and the eggs need salt.
Thump thump. A brick comes through the window. It has two words on the small sides: One is written in a different language and you shouldn't understand it but you can; the other is "hint." And your fork drops because all the blood in your body hurries to your brain where everyone's working overtime; your brain is opening up and someone's in there flipping switches. And it makes sense, that poem you read in 11th grade written by the old dead dude. It was rather insightful but you could write it much better now.
Thump thump. A brick comes through the window. That's the third time this week, but the offending vaulters' parents don't care. You speak in non sequitirs to no one who'll listen. On the last day of your life the parents don't care. Much like yesterday, neither do you.
Thump.
Th

The face of change

Philip grabbed his chipped Caribou mug from his night stand and jabbed it under Mr. Coffee’s nasal drip without bothering to wash out yesterday’s black ring. The mindless drip grew into a weak stream that felt like a mocking indictment, as if it were his life’s blood leaking through the beans - being strained of any value. Phil was not a fan on Mondays.

He didn’t hold it against the Mondays, it wasn’t their fault that they were followed by four other mind numbing week days, just like it wasn’t his fault that he was always followed around by four mind numbing nitwits who called themselves CPAs, but probably couldn’t spell it. King Philip the 1st, emperor of a raindrop called the auditing department of Logicons R&D division.

Oooh-rah.

Mr. Coffee gave a last wet gasp and Phil pulled out his cup wondering if its stimulating effect might be heightened by skipping the part where he dumped it down his throat and simply poured it down his pants. Could he get disability for that and stay home? Phil knew he needed a change.

Attempting to button up his white collar with one hand, Phil wondered if change was possible; real change, not just changing from Dentine to Juicy Fruit, but genuine, paradigm shifting, earth shattering change. Hand slipping, Phil sloshed a wave of coffee onto his clean-ish white shirt.

At least I get to change my shirt; he thought bitterly and began the process of one hand unbuttoning. The coffee stayed in the hand, it was a rule.

Phil was about half way to work before he realized that his neighbor Ron had clearly possessed two heads. Not like, a mannequin head under one arm or some kind of two faced makeup, but genuinely had two heads, each just off center of the top of his torso, each with its own neck, each with its own goatee.

It was not until Phil raced into his office to share this startling observation with his newly two-headed coworkers that Phil felt deep down in his soul that change, real change, was possible. Holy crap.

-Brihack

Song of the Sea Serpent

By Marcy

I wrecked my car, and it’s all that sea serpent’s fault.

I was driving to the beach, north of Salem. The sun was bright off the water and my sunglasses weren’t cutting it. Last time I buy aqua-tinted lenses just to match one outfit. It’s all about polarized lenses for me from now on.

Anyway, I was reaching up to adjust the visor when I saw it. It looked like a dragon – but with no wings. Just a huge scaly body, the color of basalt and ocean glass, its eyes as bright and yellow-white as the sun that was reflecting off the water behind it. Steam churned from its nostrils and rose from its back. It arced into the sky, the bottom half of it still submerged.

And it sang.

I will never forget the sound of its voice. It was clear, crystalline, pure. It sang to the sun, wavering there above the surface, treading water with a hidden tail. Its voice rang through the summer air, swirling in the clouds and drifting on the salty ocean breeze. I closed my eyes and fell into the melody.

I awoke, my car halfway submerged in the tide, tire tracks stretching behind me through the sand back to the road. The serpent was gone, replaced by flashing lights and freaked-out beachgoers.

And I hummed the song the serpent sang all the way to the asylum.

Everyone knows Minotaurs can’t drive.

Everyone knows that Minotaur’s can’t drive. It’s more than just the hoofs and the horn-to-head-room issue; it’s a mental possessing thing. Minotaur’s are natural maze dwellers, so the linear progression involved in most driving trips messes with their heads. Straight lines and Minotaur’s do not mix. This all pales in light of their overwhelming instinct to lurk and then jump out and scare people – this hard wired reflect does not translate well when these bull headed beast get behind the wheel.

But it was late, and I’d had one too many and, to be honest when you have been friends as long as Stan and I, you stop seeing the horns, hairy legs and the washboard stomach- you just see your buddy. Personally I blame the designated driver campaigns you see on TV all the time. They never tell you the real deal, like buzzed driving is drunk driving, but it’s always better than letting your friend Stan the Minotaur drive. PSAs are never big with details or particulars.

Pity.

Now don’t get me wrong, the arresting Orc made a lot of sense when he pointed out that Stan had polished off a barrel or two all by himself. But we all know that wasn’t the real problem. I tried to make a case for racial profiling, but the judge wouldn’t go for it. Stinking elves, always so logical and calm and focused on facts. He can pretend to be impartial but he was just made because Stan ran over his son. I mean the kid was already 600 years old, what more did he want from life?

Anyway, that’s why I lost my license. And my freedom. And my skin. Oh, yeah the loss of skin hurts, but luckily the magic keeps me from dying of infections or passing out from the pain. So, it’s only another year or two and Stan says he’s really sorry. He’s going to traffic school next weekend. That Stan… what a guy.

-Brihack

Writing Assignment: Pesky troll

By Matt

“Honest officer, it wasn’t my fault.”

How many times has that line been used over the years to get out of a ticket or explain an accident? Well in my case it was true, it wasn’t my fault. Sit back and you’ll hear the tale of the time a troll wrecked my car.

It was late winter, March in fact. I’d just gotten some bad news at work. I work at a word factory, see, and I’d just found out I’d have to work 16 hour days, six days a week. Now if that’s not a killer schedule, I’m not sure I understand what a killer schedule is.

Now as you can imagine, as I left the factory, I was in a pretty rotten mood. I mean, it was a two hour drive home and now I only had eight hours to drive home, get some dinner, go to bed, and then get up and start all over again. That meant I was going to about 3 hours sleep a night at best.

So there I was on the freeway, humming along at a cool 75 miles an hour, listening to the afternoon DJ on the radio make some of some poor drunken unfortunate. It was snowing a bit, but the roads were just wet. It was a pretty easy drive, all things considered for late March. I was in the last half-hour of the trip as I hit the city and I was getting pretty groggy. That’s why when the troll appeared, I thought it was just a paranoid delusion. Little did I know…

The troll appeared as I was passing a one of the massive tractor-trailers with two trailers hooked up to it. I pulled alongside the behemoth, hauling food for the local uber-super-duper mart. That’s when I heard it…

From somewhere in the back there was this low growl, which sounded suspiciously like my cat, who I knew wasn’t in the back seat. Just the same I glanced back through the rear view mirror. Seeing nothing, I passed it off as being a product of my weary mind.

I punched the accelerator and my car's 250 horses pulled it past the lumbering semi. As I pulled in the right lane again, I heard it again. That same low growl. This time, it seemed a bit closer. Again I looked in the rear view mirror. Nothing. I turned my attention back to the road. That’s when it happened.

The growl came again. This time it sounded as if it had come from the seat next to me. I looked over and saw it. The troll was about five feet tall, with coffee- colored skin covered in festering boils. His face was dominated by a massive nose and fat, ugly lips. His eyes, mere slits were like looking into the soul of darkness itself. Most strange, though was what came out of its mouth.

“I say, chap, nice of you to notice me. Might you give me a lift to Eleron? I’m frightfully late for a pillaging seminar, and if I don’t arrive soon, I just might be sacked. Couldn’t have that now, could we? I’m afraid my people’s idea of sacking is quite unpleasant.”

At this point, an odd feeling came over me. My stomach grew tight, my breath coming in gasps. As I tried to focus on the wheel, the road started growing more indistinct, until there was nothing but blackness.

When I awoke, I was surrounded by firefighters and policemen. My car cocooned around me, I was unable to move more than a few inches. There was no sign of the troll. After about an hour of frantic work by the rescue workers I was freed and taken to a waiting ambulance. As I was being put inside, I noticed a street sign. Eleron Boulevard.

The Big Wrinkle

Tim was small for his age. He was skinny with bumpy knees and sharp elbows. His eyes were like two big pools of milk with bright round plums in the middle. Tim liked to have fun. He loved to run around a lot and play games and pull on pigtails and trip smaller kids in the hall and splash water all over the place from the water fountain.

Tim had a smile on his face most of the day and half of the night. He would stay up late to read books about good guys and bad guys and dragons and pirates and hunters. Tim loved to imagine that he was a hero from one of the books he read late at night, deep under the bed covers.

If Tim had the idea to ask one of the other kids at school which character they though he was like they would have said the annoying side kick or the villain. This would have been true, but hurt Tim’s feelings - so it was best that he never asked. Tim was loud, Tim was fast and Tim made every day about Tim. Tim was the king of Mondays to Saturdays.

But Sunday was another story. On Sundays Tim spent time with “The Wrinkle!” Four whole hours every single Sunday was unfair, Tim knew this was true from the bottom of his toes to the top of his sandy blonde hair. He felt like he was being punished for something he never did. The Wrinkle was the worst! The wrinkle was all about the “creepy smell” and the “quiet”. If Tim could just watch cartoons or bring his video games or listen to the radio or throw a ball around the room or just not go at all things would be better. Being at school would have been better. But Sundays were Wrinkle days. Mom would drop him off at the Old People Home for the Aging to spend time with Uncle Oliver. Oliver the Wrinkle! Tim knew that Uncle Oliver not his real uncle, Uncle Oliver was some kind of great uncle or cousin or something.

If his mom had asked, Tim would have told her that he was sure that Uncle Oliver was part elephant. His ears were huge! They hung off the sides of his head like a pair of melted candles. And the hair that came out of them! The Wrinkle had no hair on his head, but there was enough hair spraying out of his elephant ears to cover a large rat!

Sunday was always about being bored and stinky and gross. Sunday felt like it lasted a whole week!

* * *

Tim watched the cartoon cat get pulled from a chair and out the window, screaming down the street. He was pretty sure real cats would not do that, but he would check next time he saw one.

Mom called him from the other room, “Timmy!”

Tim pretended not to hear her. He could probably watch another cartoon if he just ignored her for a few more minutes.

“Timmy, time to go. Uncle Oliver is waiting!”

No he isn’t, thought Timmy. Uncle Oliver doesn’t even know when I am there in the room with him. Uncle Oliver does not care if I come or not. The Big Wrinkle is just getting extra stinky so that he smells extra weird when I get there. Maybe his ears will block the door to his room so we can’t get in.

“Timmy!”

“I’m doing it!” Timmy called back, sliding off the sofa and clicking the TV off. He felt like all of his energy clicked off with the TV. Today was going to take forever.

…to be continued

-Brihack

Cleaning Up

By Bryan

NOTE: I don't know if this is a beginning, a middle, or an end. I write stories like that sometimes, and rarely do I go back to them. I guess I'm satisfied in letting people guess what it is, and let them draw their own conclusions. Here, you'll find yourself asking who, what, and where, and the only real question answered is why, but it's only partially answered.
ALSO: I begin my new job as editor of the Lexington Minuteman tomorrow. I'll let y'all know of the Web site once I get me some stories posted.


“Sorry,” he said as he picked his three remaining teeth. “Ain’t goin’.”
This makes it easy. As a last resort I’d planned to knock those last three chompers clean off his gums. He had his chance. And when I say join us or die, men usually listen. Usually.
This summer makes me sweat at bad times, like when you got to keep it all in and not show anything. The wrong soggy spot or wet forehead can give the impression you got something to hide. Maybe that’s what he’s thinking. Jesus it’s hot.
He’s gone back to his beer, and the two goons with me just keep staring at him. They don’t know what else to do. The bar’s dark but I know he sees them, even as he stares at the busted TV on the wall leaking a basketball game through the static. He probably thinks I’m going to make the last move. He’s right.
“Hawk isn’t takin’ no for an answer, Smokey. You and I both know the Demons are on their way out anyway. Heard just last week they split from the house on Route 30. Got no money, no prospects, and the last three robberies put most of you in jail.”
He’s listening still. Didn’t know I found out about that house, did you? In their heyday the Demons had some 50 or 60 of ‘em across the Midwest. Three were always kept top secret, where their treasuries were. But even those dried up like dust, and I’m the wind blowin’.
He’s looking at me again. Neither of those glassy eyes look like they got much smarts behind them. But even a dumbass like this one knows when he’s beat.
I remember when a guy like this – arms thick as trees, tattoos all over, and leather to match them – could shake down a liquor store owner just by lookin’ at him. The backing he had could open the floods of Hell on you if he wanted. He scared kids like me. But you get older, you start seeing things the way they really are. They operate like a machine, these guys. But you loosen enough of the screws and the whole damn thing falls apart. Maybe that’ll happen to us Angels one day. I’ll be long gone before then.
“Nope,” he says. “Ain’t goin’.”
That’s too bad. You’re already gone.

Souls of Men

This week's Assignment
By Marcy

I don’t remember a whole lot from before when I fell. My earliest memories have been taken over by darkness now. But I vaguely remember light; very bright light … brighter than sunlight, and radiant. Sometimes when the heat from the stone floors around the magma pools splits and blisters the pads on my feet, I think about that light. When I am alone at night in my chambers, I imagine that light like cool water washing rock chips and dried blood from my cracked, bleeding feet. I meditate on the light. It engulfs me from toe to head, cooling the blood in my veins, calming the agony in my heart, drowning the cries of the tortured from my ears. I hold the light around me for as long as I can, before I have to go back to work. It helps me through the day, through my work, torturing souls eternally.

I try often to think about how I got here; it’s fuzzy in my memory, like much before my fall. I remember nothing of what I did, which I find ironic, as the whole point of this place is supposed to be about suffering for one’s ills for eternity. Whatever I did, He must have been justified in sending me here. His forgiveness only applies to the souls of men; not a luxury afforded to those of us who were part of his host.

Others have fallen, probably none more famous than our Master down here. And some of those others are nearly as twisted as the Master. But some of us aren’t. We do our jobs because we have to, we can’t remember why, and we hope that someday He sees fit to grant forgiveness to those of us without souls of men, who have no recollection what crimes we’re atoning for, but will spend eternity doing just that. In the meantime, I think about the light as I drift to sleep at the end of my shift. And I try never to forget it.

Crossover Bloggage

Howdy Hack Fans!
Marcy Here.
Here's an old Hacks post that originated on my blog, Playtime at Hazmat. I meant to post this on the Hack blog a long time ago and never got around to it. Dave, Bryan, and I were playing Lego Star Wars and somehow managed to write this story at the same time. Enjoy!

We'll meet the ninjas at the Barbary Coast

This post brought to you by:
Marcy, the Media Ninja
Dave, Lord Ledley the Ravager and
Bryan, Hooch the Destroyer

I just asked two guys playing video games in the same room as me to give me a sentence to start this story with. Then I made them write it with me off the top of our heads, each of us trading off a sentence at a time. Here's the pathetic but entertaining result:

"We'll meet the ninjas at the Barbary Coast."
"No, we shall not; have you so soon forgotten the Black Ninja Eradication of 2023?"
Halsom shook his head and pounded his fist into the wooden plank table, toppling Mardon's ale jug.
Truly, it was a strange conversation to be having at Wal-Mart but the furniture delivery was late and the stock clerks were restless.
And Myron the assistant manager was nowhere to be seen; they suspected he and Marge from layaway were off somewhere, uh, laying away.
"I assure you, the ninjas will be there, and they will be bringing with them the lost cheese of Zandlar," said Mardon, scratching his head and tossing the twelve sided dice aimlessly as he was thinking.
Before Halsom's reply, a bay door creaked to life and light flooded the room, casting gold sparkles atop the ale.
"Crap," Mardon hissed, "so much for cheese."
"I thought I told you morons no roleplaying on the job," bellowed Dan Yonker, the wall-eyed night shift manager as he strode through the goldish haze of the loading dock security lights.
And before the clerks could pick up their board, before their last thoughts could return to the loving crush of their mothers' arms, two ninja stars pierced their hearts, thrown from the able and mastered wrists of Dan Yonker, the last remaining ninja of Sheboygan and lone survivor of the Black Ninja Eradication of 2023.

Uncle Lou

A: Earliest? That’s a toughie. No… wait-a-minute I can tell you. Yeah- definitely. I was only like 2 or 3 decades old at the time when my uncle Lou came to visit and he told me something I will never forget. He says to me, and I quote here, “Being evil ain’t got nothin’ to do with doing bad stuff.” He actually bent down and looked me right between the horns at this point, one hand on my wing spike and he said, “Being evil ain’t about doin bad stuff. It’s all about bein’ unpredictable.”

Q: Then what did he do?

A: Well, you know Lou. Lead by example is his thing, so he kissed me gently on the forehead and then threw me down three rings on hell into some fiery acid.

Q: Quite an example.

A: You mocking me?

Q: Goodness, gracious, no. Wouldn’t think of it.

A: That’s what I thought. Anyway what a sense of humor that guy had, huh? I nearly regretted it when I disintegrated him a few centuries later.

Q: Surely... we all grieved his passing. So, this, your earliest memory, is to what you attribute all of your success?

A: You are mocking me you little white winged wuss. Look, we done here?

Q: By all means. Thank you for your time and is there anything else you would like the viewers at home to know?

A: Well, I got no more words for them, but lean over here I wanna give you a kiss on the forehead.

-Brihack

Marcy's Hill Story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canisteo_(village),_New_York

There was definitely something wrong.

My eyes felt swollen, and my pulse throbbed in my temples. Something was stinging the skin on the back of my neck. It took all of my strength just to push myself up to sitting. Below me I could see the elementary school grounds and the houses that spread out between Greenwood Street and the Canisteo River. I knew where I was sitting - smack in the middle of the “C” on the world-famous living Canisteo sign.

I reached back and gingerly touched the spot on my neck that was stinging and found it raised, scabbed over. There was something hard under the surface of my skin. Then last night’s events came flooding back to me. Bright light … floating … pain … large black eyes staring down at me surrounded by light.

Damn aliens had tagged me again.

I forced myself to stand, my wobbly knees protesting the walk downhill through the cross-country trails I ran when on the team as a teenager. I had to get back home, get out the exacto knife, and remove the tag. Not that it would help, they’ve tagged me three times before. But why make their job easier, right?

Dave's Hill Story

There it is. My city. The humble skyline, such as it is, of its business district, such as it is. The sleepy streetlights that don't illuminate all that much action -- this isn't Chicago, or even Cleveland. The steeples -- United Methodist, First Presbyterian, the Missionary Baptist on the west side next to Uncle Fran's BBQ. Ribs were top-notch, but Fran's brisket truly was to die for ... if you pardon the expression. Focus focus focus. Immediately below, at hill's bottom, the bypass. The truest route to elsewhere. Second-truest.

Heh. There's old Van Buren, where I didn't learn algebra or Earth science. Learned plenty about Darwinism, though, which is what middle school's for: Only the strong survive, or at least pass on their genes. Yep, it's still got the old-school jungle-gym, the metal monstrosity that marks a real playground -- none of these lawyer-approved mazes of nets and chutes and ladders. Cold, hard metal. Heh. When Randy Larsch got the upper hand during that fight over -- over something, I guess, middle school fights don't need to be about anything -- and smashed my nose into the third rung three times in rapid succession, the important thing at the time was that it was hard. Now, the thing that stays with me is how cold it was. Must've been one of those November afternoons that precede the first snowfall but see it coming on the horizon. Gave as good as I got, though -- a few weeks later, it was his blood on the jungle-gym. Heh. Ended up becoming friends, sort of -- in fact, these days Randy's my CPA. Was.

There's the old A&P -- or there it would be, were a Wal-Mart Supercenter not feeding off its bones. Three years of wearing aprons and Mr. Kelly's store of spare striped woeful ties, weilding the cunning pricing gun and stocking the shelves -- the bane of stock clerks, if you've ever wondered: tiny cat food tins of the Fancy Feast variety, which never stack quite straight thanks to their pull top and always seem to fall over and tilt and look slovenly and occasionally roll down the aisle. Heh. Blizzard of eighty-eight, we closed up and waited out the storm, and tapped an Old Milwaukee keg from the dairy cooler. Kelly didn't say anything other than he didn't want to know -- then he'd send us out to the front end for some pretext of another and pour himself a healthy draught himself. A&P's to thank, or blame, for Amy the unbelievable redhead and that one unforgettable summer -- and that one unbearable autumn. She was running register, I was bagging. Heh. Hey, everyone -- double entendre. We spent our share of time up here -- well, okay, not right here at the bluff but back there where the woods begin, exploring whatever we'd care to explore. It was like that old Seger song about mysteries without any clues. Sometimes I think my whole adolescence was scored by Bob Seger. Everyone's adolescence was scored by Bob Seger. Still the same.

Yup, there's the channel-13 affiliate I interned at back in '91, after taking one broadcast class and figuring to give it a real-world whirl. (Didn't take.) And my favored comics shop, World of Krypton, where Mike kept the old Curt Swan Superman designs in the windows, even in periods where the market was all big-gun-toting, big-vest-with-way-too-many-pocket-wearing, big-we-scoff-at-basic-rules-of-human-anatomy characters. And there's Martinez's place -- mecca for hot pastrami and cigars and racing forms and five card stud (red queens tended to be wild, just like real life, but enough about Amy). and, when Marty was of a mood, free shots of bourbon. You could spend enough time in his place and forget that women even existed, if it weren't for the calendars from his brother Oscar's garage. And there's Pine Haven ...

Yep. Down there are thirty-some years of memories and twenty-some thousand souls. And twenty-some thousand bodies.

Plus one. Mine. In Pine Haven, as of ten-thirty this morning. Or elevenish, if you want to go by when they shoveled in the last of the dirt. My family was there. Randy was there. So were Mike and Martinez and his brother Oscar. I suppose Uncle Fran would've been there too, if I'd known him other than to order brisket -- I guess I always felt too dilletanishly white in that place to strike up a conversation. And I suppose Mr. Kelly would, too, but he'd been otherwise occupied in an urn on Mrs. Kelly's mantle three years now.

I make my way downhill, not all that gingerly. Like what, I'm gonna fall?

Twenty-some thousand souls.

I clench my fists of ether.

And one's a killer.

--Dave W., 3-8-07

Lyle Koontz Jr.

Journal Entry #1, fifth try, day one of the weirdness

You know the guy. The exposed beer belly with a huge team colored letter blanketing its sweaty girth, drunk out of his mind and screaming incoherent accolades over the top of his sloshing plastic cup. The dude, who posts video of himself mixing a brew of Mentos and Diet Coke in his own mouth, then tries to sweet talk the ladies while foaming at the mouth. The guy who proves that the idiot with the loudest voice makes the poorest choice? You know that sociopath. Of course, I know him too. Lyle Koontz Jr.; he’s me.

Why am I writing this down instead of talking to my fellow Chino townies? Good question! Good question. Funny thing about that… So, last night after a six glasses of whatever was on tap and on special followed by a dare from one of my gang of fellow idiots at the Lush Pub I found myself on the bluff overlooking the sprawling town of Chino. To be honest I blacked out when I got to the top of the water tower, but I woke up with a hundred feet of bungee cord a gallon of white glue and a pink frilly dress stuffed in a paper grocery bag. Not a big deal, at least this time there were no animals. What I think woke me was the silence.

You never notice the little sounds of the city. The hundreds of car engines running, feet walking, doors closing, conversations, construction work – even the hum of the lights – it all makes noise and the absence of it – the totally unexpected and hortastically awful overwhelmingly absoluteness of it. I could hear myself breathe and the sound felt like trespassing. I have to go down there and find out what happened. I can’t just eat the glue; I tried, loses its appeal after kindergarten. So, here I go. Gonna head down and see just what the hell happened last night. Yup. Gonna go. Any minute now.

Soon.


-Brihack