We called them doorman buildings. We dreamed of them, but they was always out of reach. No way you get past the lobby, let alone onto them high floors where the really rich people live.

The blackout changed all that. Them doormen scattered like cockroaches, left their lobbies wide open. We just strolled right in like we owned the place. I pushed the highest number in the elevator. Start at the top, work my way down.

You’d  think them rich folks have things worth stealing, but you’d be wrong. What fence in his right mind takes antiques or oil paintings?

 

 

“Gimme that horn, yo.”

She was hogging bad. It was my fucking money, even if she was the one who scored.

“Wait your turn.”

The lighter was almost spent, the flame so tiny it was lost in the daylight.

“You better not snuff all that up,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t. For an addict, she was pretty thoughtful. She just hated going second is all.

“Here,” she said, handing me the pipe. I’d made this one from a Bic pen, the clear plastic that don’t melt.

Smoke rolling, everything better, nothing ugly no more.

Just what I was looking for.

 

“You’re calling this a setback?”

“Temporary. Look, you know how these guys can be.”

“Who, Neil? The IRS? Or the fucking DEA? And no, I don’t know how they can be.”

“Like you never chiseled anything in your life.”

“Jesus. That’s your approach? Blaming me for this fucking train wreck?”

“I’m not blaming you. It’s my fault.”

“Obviously. You’re the one with the subpoena.”

“I really need your help, Jules.”

“My help. Jesus. You’re really something, you know? It’s galling.”

“My back’s to the wall. I’ve nowhere else to turn.”

“You need to work on your persuasion skills.”

“So, yes?”

 

 

 

The owner is a moron. Hello, it’s SUNDAY. One barista isn’t going to cut it, especially when Josh half-assed his close last night because he was in an all-fired hurry to meet up with his loser friends to get high and see the same lame laser show the planetarium’s been showing since my dad was in high school. Fucking Pink Floyd.

And of course I’m totally slammed. Haven’t even unwrapped the first bakery tray when the line forms outside. Plus, it’s raining, so I have to unlock the door. The first guy did carry in the stack of Sunday Times.

 

She remembered when they had named the road in honor of the family. It was the same day they gave her father one of those Century Farm plaques.

New name or not, not many people came up this road. Farm trucks, mostly. Lots of tractors.

She could see the official car coming a long way off. She knew what it meant, same as it had meant to her grandmother in 1945 when a black War Department car carrying a priest and a maimed Marine Corps captain brought the telegram up onto the porch and her son out of their lives forever.

 

In high school we read this book, Black Like Me. This guy puts makeup on his face and hands and walks around a southern city as a black man for a week or so. After a while he can’t take it. He said people looked through him like he wasn’t even there. He called it “the stare.”

Brother, I know all about it. Been homeless since I was discharged from Walter Reed. I’m not really interested in anything Uncle has to offer no more. Lots of guys feel this way after what we saw. Uninterested.

Can’t sleep for shit, either.

 

Me and Burt is likely the only true free-climbers left in Kent since Wogs pitched off and broke his spine. You notice  we always mark the fallen by their chief injury, not the fact they was killed, which Wogs most certainly was, as any sod would be who fell three hundred feet? Soft sand and water, you say?

Bollocks. Iron hard from a height like that.

Why do we keep on? We’re Scots is why. Famous cragsmen. Climbing crags is in our blood, you might say. The cliffs is why we moved down to bloody Dover in the first place.

A big girl, strong, quick-tempered at the best of times and apt to throw punches if she didn’t like what you said. Before we were married, I used to think this was cute. Now it’s just embarrassing, especially showing up at the office next day with a busted lip or a shiner. It was always worse when she drank.

We were in the car when I must’ve said something,  just driving along when pow, the right side of my face exploded. She’d hit me with her shoe. I finally got it away from her and chucked it out the window.

Friday Fictioneers

Chuck leaned against the blade of the backhoe, clearly nervous. “They didn’t say nothing about it being no graveyard, Donnie.”

“Oh, the tough guy is afraid of ghosts now? Gimme a fucking break.”

“It’s bad luck is all.”

Donnie lit a Kool. “The man paid you to do a job, not for your opinion about what’s lucky. Get into your goddamn machine and get started. The dump trucks are on the way. Slab’s being poured tomorrow.”

“But what about the bodies? Under the slab?”

Donnie laughed. “They ain’t going nowhere. It’ll be nice and dark and peaceful. Get to work.”