This all started when Pank nicked the panel Morris.

“Got it Manchester,” he’d said. “Bloody fuck all looking for it in Bristol.”

He’d fitted it out with magnetic panels he’d gotten from Amazon, a lovely irony that made us both smile.

For a few months it was our main occupation, both of us in smart gray coveralls and caps, driving the neigbourhoods on the spy for left packages.

Pank hit the idea of following the real Amazon bloke, hot on his heels to un-deliver his latest batch.

That’s what caught us up in the end.

People sure buy some weird shite.

Friday Fictioneers

“Now remember there are two of those casseroles.”

“So you said.”

“Well, just don’t forget about the one in the freezer.”

“I won’t”

“I did the dishes again.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“It’s no bother. You know it wouldn’t be so hard if you kept up with it.”

“I know. I just…didn’t have the energy, I guess.”

“Well, God helps those who help themselves.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“How about you go for a walk? That might clear your head.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Seriously. Get out of that recliner. There’s a whole big world out there.”

“Don’t I know it.”

 

Friday Fictioneers

Ford To City: DROP DEAD.  They was golden words to us.

Back then, there was at least two New Yorks.

There was TV New York, the one you see at the beginning of TV shows like Barney Miller or Welcome Back Kotter. Long shots of skyscrapers, maybe cut with a street scene or two.

Them scenes got as much to do with real New York as Bugs Bunny does with a real rabbit.

We lived in the park then, your mother and me, in a cave they since filled in with concrete.

Dangerous? Maybe. But at least we was free.

 

Friday Fictioneers

Twelve tables, two booths,
staff of three:
           Frank on the grill
           Merla waiting table
           Mrs. on the register.

  Weekends the wait
     is an hour or more
       but early
         weekdays
            you
              can
               usually

         get in
         quick.

               Frank hovers over 
               the smoking flat-top
               like a symphony conductor

              each order taking up its little area

     a big wedge of hashbrowns
     down one edge
     perpetually replenished

                          bacon and sausage cooking
                                in the side broiler.

Merla glides through
        like an ice skater
                pitcher of water
            and pot of coffee
       in perpetual motion,
plates stacked across her arm.

                                  Mrs sits watching
                                                  like a chickenhawk. 

 

Friday Fictioneers

Oh he don’t look like much, Birdy, with them cross-eye glasses and orthopedic boots, but I tell you that kid is worth more than his weight in silver dollars. You put that crook-face boy up on a ladder and he can tell you the layout of everything in the room worth a pickled cent. Jewelry, TV, watches… that stuff is all easy. He can spot a wall safe, or a closet strongbox. He can tell you whether the woman of the house is a light sleeper, whether the man has an in-town girl he sees.

Oh yes, Birdy. He’s gold.

 

Friday Fictioneers

The roach-crawling apartment, broken down car, the Waffle House, forty-plus hours a week of aching feet and grease-saturated clothes.

All gone now, left way away down there.

It’d been in her mind ever since signing up for the course. She’d ingratiated herself with Jerry, a middle-aged divorcee who thought he knew everything about ballooning and was eager to share.

The look on his face when she cast off the ballasts and left him standing there. Poor sucker couldn’t believe it. Probably planning what he’d do when she landed.

But she wasn’t going to land.

She turned the burners to full.

Friday Fictioneers

Them days we’d meet up after work at Fat Vince’s.

Little Stevie was still alive then, before all that shit with his Ma.

We’d eat and figure out what to do with Saturday Night.

I was holding down seven-to-four at Saragaglia’s Hardware, mixing paint and flirting with the women.

That place got more women than you ever saw in a hardware store, all of them helpless as does.

What’s a Phillips screwdriver, James?

Will this plug fit my drain? 

I always remembered all of their names, too.

They loved me.

Looking back, I think that’s why Saragaglia kept me on.

Friday Fictioneers

The boys stand in the slim shade of the plaza’s only tree.

“Pretty dead, man.” Tranh leans between his handlebars and spits. “Pretty boring.”

“They’ll unlock it soon,” says Nguyen. “They have to. What happened to your mask?”

“Too fucking hot.” Tranh pats his pocket. “Any cop sees me, I’ll say I’m sorry and put it back on.”

“My old man was talking about the war last night,” says Nguyen. “How they’d ride Hondas through the town and snatch cameras from the GIs. Said Saigon was hopping then. Dangerous, though.”

“Now it’s safe and boring,” says Tranh. “Too fucking bad.”

 

 Friday Fictioneers

 

 

We never hit it big-big, just semi-big.

The A&R guy saw us pack a house in Cleveland and signed us to a three-record deal, calling us a “cross between ACDC and the Doors,” whatever that meant.

We spent our entire advance on gear and drugs in two months.

Three singles kissed the top ten, only to drift down to obscurity.

You can sometimes hear them on the oldies channel.

We had to pay back the advance, take day jobs.

Through it all, we never gave up.

Same five guys, older and fatter, but still able to rock the house down.

Friday Fictioneers

Dad woke me at three AM, tapping on my bedroom window.

“Come on,” he said. “I have a surprise.”

I didn’t ask if he’d talked to mom about it.

By that point I didn’t care.

Now I live here in Kailua, a one-bedroom apartment a thousand feet from the ocean.

I swim all day.

The water is always perfect, calm and inviting.

It’s summer now,  but Dad says in the fall I’ll be going to school.

I met some of the kids at the St. Anthony’s rec center on Kalaheo, but they don’t trust me yet because I’m a mainlander.

Friday Fictioneers