“I can’t smell it.”

“Are you serious? Mom, I can smell it from outside.”

“Doesn’t bother me.”

“Is this where your money is going? These cats? Do you even know how many?”

“Sixteen, I think.”

“There are more than that in the kitchen.”

“I know them as individuals. I don’t keep track like that.”

“It’s unsanitary, Mom. It stinks.”

“That’s just the litter boxes. They all use them. At least most of them do. Like I say, I can’t smell it.”

“What do you neighbors say?”

“They’re all renters now since the Shepardson boy sold their house.”

“They’re still neighbors.”

 

Friday Fictioneers

 

Dang I miss Tana. She was big in my life, bigger than my mom even.

I met her someplace. Strange I don’t remember.

She had a magic to her, Tana did. Like the way she’d pull some blades of grass up in her hands while we sat in the park talking, twist them in her fingers and make a little cup or a bunny from them.

Or how she could talk about a book so it was better story than if you was reading it. She had a magic to her, all right.

I’ll always wonder where she went to.

 

“I have a visual,” he said over the noise of the chopper. “Looks to be 50-foot sloop badly listing to starboard. Over.”

“Roger. Anyone aboard?”

“Negative. Going in for a closer look. Over.”

Jenks examined the sailboat through his binoculars. “There’s a big hole in the port hull,” he said into the intercom. “Looks like a collision. Maybe another vessel, L.T.?”

“Nothing reported. My guess is a shipping container.” He brought the helicopter closer, the blades whipping the water to white foam. “If there’s anyone aboard, they’re unable to come on deck.”

Jenks buckled on the harness. “Lower me down.”

 

Friday Fictioneers

Kenny looked at the clock by his bed, then got up and went to the window. Her Celica drove down their street and vanished from view. 

He looked down at the driveway, now empty.  His mom’s car had been there a moment before and now it was like it’d never been there.

He took a deep breath and held it. He listened to the sounds of the house, hummings and clickings.  He’d never noticed before how many sounds there were. They went on whether he was there or not.

He wondered if this was what it was like to be dead.

Friday Fictioneers

He was always a creepy kid. When he was twelve he locked a six-year-old neighbor boy into a trunk, sitting atop it and telling him to breathe slowly. Later, he started buying chemistry sets and Tesla coils, turning the basement into a Frankenstein lab. This led to bomb-making, which led to moviemaking, which led to film school. You know the rest of the story.

The thing is, though, you had to know him when he was young. Sometimes I’ll be sitting in one of his movies and it will come back to me. I’ll remember what he’d been like.

Creepy.

Lurch sat at the bar and surveyed the customers. That was the problem with small towns, he thought. You knew everybody and everybody knew you.

In Chicago, he’d wear shorts to show his prosthetic leg and the barflies would naturally assume he was a veteran. He never actually claimed this status, but he didn’t discourage it. He wore dog tags and BDU shorts and boots. In some Chicago bars, he seldom had to buy a drink.

But everybody here knew he’d lost the leg jumping off a train. “Dare me,” he’d said.

He’d been drunk, of course.

Then and now.

 

Friday Fictioneers

He came home late. I think he’s been drinking again.

Listen, that’s not why I called.

He quit his job. Yeah.

I guess he got into a fight with his supervisor. I was so upset by that point I wasn’t listening.

That’s not the worst. Not even close.

The band. That’s his plan.

Yeah, I know.

I guess he thinks the mortgage will pay itself?

No, I haven’t. I don’t even have a current resume.

I don’t know. Come live with you? You like the kids.

Him? He stormed out. Maybe I’ll change the locks. Put his guitars on ebay.

 

Marco is on his third espresso when Paolo buzzes into the palazzo on his Vespa, smiling all over his face.

“Good morning,” says Marco.

“You would not believe how good,” says Paolo. He reaches into the saddlebag and removes a messenger bag, the strap sliced clean through.  He holds it up and shakes it. “Mac Book pro. Nikon Camera. Wallet full of money. Even a Rolex!”

“I told you it was a good technique.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I misjudged the strap and stuck the knife into a woman’s back. I was certain I used up all my luck escaping.”

 

He said his name was Juan, but one of the men called him Alberto.

I paid three thousand pesos for his guarantee.

Sixteen of us gathered to met him in the parking lot of the Super Coyote.

He had us each buy two gallons of water, even the children.

At two in the morning he put us the back of his truck like cattle and drove us ninety kilometers west where he said there was a blind spot on the fence.

He carried ladders on the truck.

“Bienvenidos a Los Estados Unidos,” he said.

It only got worse from there.

 

 

Friday Fictioneers

The DRG chief looked up as Yuri came in. “I’ve been reading the report,” he said without introduction. “A brilliant operation. Pity about the collaterals, but sometimes that can’t be helped.”

“The museum was especially crowded,” said Yuri. “Which, of course, we knew was a risk. We did not expect so many children.”

“Yes,” said the chief. “A pity. But as I said, it couldn’t be helped. Do we have a final count of the casualties?”

“In addition to the target, thirty-five were affected by the gas. Nineteen died, three were paralyzed. The rest recovered.”

“Remember, Yuri. It’s a war.”

Friday Fictioneers