Noops

I've stopped writing

2011-09-02T18:16:00.001-07:00

I'm really sad about that.

Breeders

2011-05-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Ten miles away on the dark side of town, the president of Maxday Enterprises, Jock Shaw, has been up for hours, plotting the final stages of his next corporate takeover.

“God damn it.” He yells into thin air, a Bluetooth headset planted on the side of his thick bald head. At six-four and two-eighty, Shaw is a big man with a big temper and a big sloppy cigar crushed between his teeth. “Just tell me where the hell we stand.” His voice echoes though the kitchen of Shawmoor, the McMansion he’d built for his second wife. His second ex-wife. He’d spent fifty grand on Brazilian granite countertops just to make her happy, but she’d left anyway. She never cooked a god damn thing.

He looks out the window across acres of manicured lawn. A whitetail buck grazing on hydrangeas near the south fence. Shaw’s pulse picks up the thrill of a kill.

“We stand exactly where we should be standing,” soothes the familiar voice of his nephew, Tommy Roy Foster, the only son of his long-dead sister. “You’ll win, Uncle Jock. Tis a matter of fact.”

“So you say.”

“Ye’ve outspent them and ye've outsmarted them. The election is in ten days. There’s nothing they can do. It’s check and mate.”

“What about the darkies? They’ll be out in force.”

Tommy Roy groans big enough for Shaw to hear.

“What?” demands the uncle.

“Stop calling them darkies, Uncle Jock.”

Frowned in skepticism, Shaw takes a Browning deer rifle from the closet and steps onto the back deck. He can barely make out the buck in the drizzle, but barely is close enough for Jock Shaw. The gun blast jolts the damp air as he watches through the scope, watches the animal hobble with a shattered shoulder, then collapse. He fires again and misses.

“Breeders.” He tosses his cigar at the yard. On the other end of the phone, Tommy Roy takes the shooting in stride, a regular feature of their early morning briefings.

Shaw moves back inside and stares through binoculars, watching the buck struggle and fail to stand. He pours another cup of coffee, his third this morning, stirring in a splash of Glenkinchie single-malt. Tommy Roy waits.

“What about the trial? Will that god damn reporter be there today?”

“Which one?”

“The faggot.”

“Which one?”

“That one from Raleigh.”

Slowly

2011-04-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

Have been away from writing for awhile. Not sure which way this story is going. Wish me luck.

Chapter 3

2010-12-10T08:26:00.001-08:00

She eases into life as she does most days in October, buried under blankets. That happens when you’re obsessed with your personal carbon footprint, you set your thermostat all the way down to freeze-your-butt-off. Be one with the cold, she thinks, reaching for socks on the floor. Visitors find that mantra tough to swallow through chattering teeth, but still they come around. It’s hard to resist a red-headed witch who can read your palm just as surely as she can read your mind.

It was fifty years ago last month that Lorelei Olive Leigh slipped out of her mother’s womb just ahead of her not-quite-identical twin Layla, sending a stern psychic warning to the obstetrician on call. Save my sister, she signaled. And thank goodness the doctor listened, because while Lori was on the way out, Layla was on the way down, with a cord wrapped just too tight.

As luck would have it, the girls survived being born and grew up more or less sane in the coastal Carolina town of Sunrise Beach, where the family occupied a sturdy block house on the corner of Oak and Shell. Early on, the twins looked alike, their hot red hair and cool green eyes overshadowing all else until middle school when they parted physical ways. Layla gained a three-inch advantage in height, while Lori took honors in the boobs department. Daddy got over-interested in both. So when mama came home one day and found him inspecting the girls in the bathtub, she called him to the bedroom and shot him in the stomach.

After the accident, that’s what the police called it, mom and dad managed to stay out of trouble for a few years, doing enough drugs along the way to kill two people, which is more or less what happened to the fiery couple. On the night of high school graduation, the girls came home to dead parents, who left just enough insurance to pay off the mortgage.

In the wake of the overdose, Lori found herself preferring the company of just about no one, except for her sister. She all but withdrew from life, the press of human stupidity proving more than she could bear. Her only socializing involved hanging out on Eddie’s Pier, where she learned to handle a knife cleaning fish for next to nothing.

Meanwhile Layla moved in a different direction, falling for any guy who breathed. One of those breathers, a fortune-teller named Zeke, would look into a crystal ball for five bucks and tell you every truth. Their romance burned out fast, but not before it delivered two mixed blessings. Zeke became Layla’s first paying customer, launching her impressive career as a tattoo artist. And Lori discovered she had a few more senses than she knew what to do with.

“How long you been talking to dead people?” Zeke asked the first time he read Lori’s palm.

You mean like right now? Lori thought.

Zeke flinched, the shock of those words burning a hole in his brain. “Damn. You are one scary witch.”

“And you are one horny jerk,” said Lori, pulling her Buck fishing knife from the sheath on her belt. “Touch my tits again and I’ll cut your hand off.”

The threat worked well enough to deter Zeke, but he guessed Lori’s smart mouth would eventually get her into trouble, and it did. One night on the beach a few years later, she found herself trading harsh words with three college boys from N.C. State. She was out alone watching the Perseid meteor shower, a summer ritual that started when she was five. That’s the year her mother said the lightshow was a sprinkling of god’s magic. Thinking back, Lori figures mom must have been tripping, since she had never bothered to mention god since then, unless you count a few thousand god damns.

As she lay against a dune watching the skies for streaks of goodness, Lori heard the drunk guys laughing, full of trash talk, heading her way. Knowing the risk, she drew her fishing knife from her belt and stilled herself to stone.

“Well lookee here,” said the biggest boy, when he stumbled over her. Built like a football lineman, he wore one of those fraternity shirts with Greek letters.

“We done hit us some white meat,” said another boy.

“You all don’t want to mess with me,” said Lori.

“Oh yes we do, sweetheart,” said the biggest drunk, lunging for her. Lori managed to slice his arm open, but his buddies piled on and raped her. The police didn’t believe Lori’s version of what happened, not even when it turned out she was pregnant.

But being believed was the least of her worries.

“You know about that new law, don’t you?” said Layla. “Abortion is now officially murder in North Carolina.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Lori.

“Good god, sister. Don’t you watch the news?”

“Not unless it’s important.”

“Well this is important. If you’re over sixteen and you get an abortion, they’ll charge you with murder. Premeditated murder. They’re working to get the death penalty, too. All they need is a few friendly judges.”

“They? Who’s they?”

“They is a bunch of rich, white assholes like that Jock Shaw character.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You have now.”

After a lifetime of listening to Layla say the sky is falling, Lori knows enough not to argue. Her best bet is to sit tight and let things blow over.

“This isn’t going to go away, Lori,” says Layla, reading her mind. “It’s already happening. In ten years this fucked up state will be just like Afghanistan.”

“I’m not going to have some rapist’s bastard child.”
“Better get moving, then. If the Tarheel Taliban have their way, you’ll end up in jail, or worse.”

It didn’t take long to discover the truth of Layla’s words. Lori couldn’t find a doctor on the coast who would help her. They were all scared. The state had hired an army private security contractors to enforce Shaw’s Law. They only got paid when women got screwed.

Lori decided to hitch from Sunrise Beach to Chapel Hill where she managed to get an illegal abortion. It wasn’t quite back alley, but it was close. And it didn’t end the threat of her frat boy fetus. It just made her a wanted woman.

With mercenaries sniffing around, Lori laid low, moving to the country near Hillsborough where she set up shop as The Medium Miss Olive, offering practical advice with a psychic twist to anyone with cash. Harold was typical of the customers who stepped into her parlor.

“Your wife died six days ago, Harry,” said Lori. “And she says you’re already behaving like a jerk.”

“She ain’t talking to you.”

Lori held her tongue and waited.

“What’s she saying?” Harry asked.

“She told me to tell you to stop drinking so much and keep that crazy girlfriend away from your kids.”

“It don’t take no genius to figure that out.”

Lori waited again.

“What’s she saying now?”

Lori let the room go quiet, then exploded, channeling the dead wife’s rage.

“Harry!” she yelled. “Stop staring at Miss Olive’s tits!”

Harry sank into his chair under the weight of those familiar words.

“That’ll be fifteen dollars,” said Lori. “See you next week.”

1411

Chapter 9

2010-12-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

Jock Shaw switches from spiked coffee to pure Scotch at eight o’clock sharp, a habit he developed soon after his divorce ten years ago. That humiliating affair had almost been his downfall, but he’d turned the tables on the bitch. She never learned to submit like Jesus said a wife should, not even after he smacked her around. His lawyers said he should let her go quietly, but the woman got greedy and sued to steal his fortune. Nobody fucks with Jock Shaw like that. Nobody. A few weeks after she walked out, he pulled some strings and had her committed to a psych ward, with him as sole guardian. She wasn’t crazy then, but she is now. And she’s still locked up.

Living by himself at Shawmoor has been a lonely affair since then, even more so after those old darkies who raised him died off. He tried buying some younger ones, but no one would have him. Jock Shaw couldn’t find anyone, not even darkies, who would put up with his evil ways.

::

“Ye'll win again.” He yells those words to his empty house as he moves upstairs to his lavish bedroom. The stench of stale cigars laced with Lectric Shave welcomes him into the chamber. “By god, me nephew had better be right.”

At sixty, winning again is a familiar experience for Jock Shaw, something he’s done almost every day of his privileged life. Through nothing but dumb luck, he inherited a silver spoon to match his silver Scottish tongue, gradually acquiring all the benefits that money can buy, and then some. Now he’s set to take control of the state supreme court, some seriously sweet revenge on the liberal slime that cost him the only job he ever loved. Those bastards took away his badge.

Jock Shaw would tell you he never set out to be a sheriff, not in any way you could trace. He always assumed he’d be a shopping center slumlord like his daddy. But one day on a dare, this was twenty years ago, he tossed his name into the hat for Orange County sheriff and got elected in a landslide. All it took was eighty thousand dollars of Madmax money, a drop in the bucket for sprawling retail empire.

To everyone’s surprise, Shaw’s law enforcement career got off to a decent start. Most people in the county knew and respected his old man, which earned the son more benefit of the doubt than he deserved. But when his father died in a head-on collision with an illegal, Jock lost community favor in a rapid fall from grace. He pushed the limits of his power, casting an intimidating shadow across any door he dared to enter – and he dared to enter any door he damn well pleased, including the reinforced steel door of Maria’s Massage Parlor on the east side of Hillsborough. There he kept the girls on their toes – and knees – under the constant threat of arrest.

Most people with an ounce of sense know enough to be afraid of Jock Shaw, but not Maria. She didn’t cower, and she was the one who brought him down. All because he’d smacked one of her wetback whores. The case that went all the way to the top, where five out of seven state supreme court justices refused his unworthy appeal.

“Let it go, Jock,” his angry wife advised when the charges were filed. “You fucked up and you’d damn well better settle this one out of court.”

“Settle out of court? With a darkie? Ye canna be serious.”

“Well don’t blame me when you lose,” she said.

But blame her he did when he lost, and he lost big. After four years of legal maneuvering and millions in legal fees, the battle turned out as his wife had predicted. Jock Shaw got taken to the cleaners.

::

With the scourge of darkies in mind, Shaw throws down another shot of scotch, then strips off his bathrobe in front of a full-length mirror. He winces at the sight of his sagging belly and sucks in his stomach. He looks down at his pasty white legs, spindly toothpicks hanging from a bloated marshmallow.

Leaning over the bathroom sink, he splashes his face and head with Lectric shave, just like his daddy always did. Starting at the blunt end of his bulbous chin, he slides his Norelco along his jaw line, up past the front of his right ear, across the top of his head, then down the other side. He repeats the motion exactly one hundred times, covering every square millimeter of skin above his collarbones, leaving only his eyebrows and the fat brush of his cigar-stained mustache.

From a closet filled with camouflage utilities, the old man chooses a uniform that’s starched and pressed, suitable for semi-formal affairs. He’ll stop by the courthouse later this morning, then on to early voting. Tommy Roy said reporters might show up to watch him do his civic duty. He’ll look sharp for the cameras. Spit-shined combat boots with a nickel-plated .357 Smith & Wesson revolver strapped to his hip.

1388

Chapter 4

2010-12-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

Ten miles away on the dark side of Hillsborough, Sheriff Jock Shaw, half-uncle of Tommy Roy Foster and president of Madmax Enterprises, has been up for hours, plotting the final stages of a corporate takeover. It’s not another shopping mall he’s after, not this time. It’s not another school board either. Been there, done that. No, this time Jock Shaw is making his biggest power play yet. He's taking control of the state supreme court. The election is Tuesday.

“God damn it.” Shaw yells into thin air, a Bluetooth headset planted in his fleshy bald head. At six-four and two-eighty, he’s a big man with a big temper and a big stinky cigar stuck between his teeth. “Just tell me where the hell we stand.” His voice echoes though the cavernous kitchen of Shawmoor as he looks out across acres of manicured lawn. Near the south fence, a whitetail buck grazes on hydrangeas his wife planted last spring. His ex-wife.

“We stand exactly where we should be standing,” soothes the familiar voice of Tommy Roy Foster. The uncle and nephew are partners in politics, business and crime – one and the same thing to their way of thinking. “Ye'll win again, Uncle Jock. Tis a matter of fact.”

“Ye canna be sure. Not this time.”

“Ye’ve outspent them and ye've outsmarted them. We're ready to file fraud complaints anywhere the count is close. It’s check and mate, Uncle Jock. Ye've done it.”

“The darkies, Tommy Roy. They’ll be out in force.”

“Nay, Uncle Jock. They’ll no be turnin’ out.”

Frowned with skepticism, Shaw takes his Browning deer rifle from the closet and walks to the back deck. He can barely make out the shape of the buck in the drizzly dawn, but barely is good enough for Jock Shaw. The rifle’s blast shocks damp air as he watches through the scope, watches the animal hobble thirty yards with a shattered shoulder, then collapse. He fires again and misses.

“Bloody breeders,” he says, tossing his cigar at the yard.

On the other end of the phone Tommy Roy takes the shooting in stride. He’s still in bed, porn surfing on his laptop. It’s a familiar sideshow, these gunshots, a regular feature of their morning briefings.

Back inside, Shaw watches through binoculars, watches the buck struggle and fail to stand. He pours another cup of coffee, his third this morning, stirring in a splash of Glenkinchie single-malt.

Tommy Roy waits, always waits.

“What about that goddamn TV reporter?”

“Which one?”

“The faggot.”

“Which one?”

“That one from Raleigh.”

“No worries, Uncle Jock. That story is under control,” says Tommy Roy in his surest voice.

Shaw finds himself wishing his wife hadn’t left him alone in this cold stone house. He shouldn’t have hit her, no matter how uppity she got. She may have been only half his size, but that woman knew how to handle reporters. She used to be one.

“Yer too smart for yer own damn good, Tommy Roy Foster," says Shaw.

Tommy Roy bites his tongue. He’s smart alright, smarter than Jock Shaw will ever be. Besides, his uncle’s starting to lose it, anyone can see that. The same downward spiral he witnessed in his own pathetic father, Jock’s half brother. Vascular dementia laced with scotch. Memory loss. Mood swings. Confusion. Violence. Rage.

“I may verra well be too smart for me own damn good, Uncle Jock, but I tell ye this for a fact. The story will run on the evening news tonight. I’ve seen the rough cut.”

“And?”

“And ye’ll be pleased.”

Shaw ends the call without saying goodbye. He cinches his tartan bathrobe as he watches the buck surrender to death. Satisfied, he turns to the newspaper on the kitchen table, where there’s a front-page story about him trying to buy the state supreme court. Bloody hell. He’s not even spending five million dollars. He’s only doing god’s will. Fucking faggots. They can’t stop him.

He flips to the weather page, studying the five-day outlook. Clearing skies for the next five days, including Tuesday, election day. God damn it. Bad weather is what keeps the darkies from voting. Everybody knows that.

But maybe it won’t matter this time. Tommy Roy said he’s going to win. Again.

1375

1251

2010-05-08T16:26:00.001-07:00

Not yet ready for the tangle of too much thinking, Lori stretches quiet in bed, ready for life to breathe her in or swallow her whole or maybe even spit her out for good. It’s all part of Lorelei Leigh’s Unified Theory of Everything.

I am she as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

“Some days that silly song is the only thing standing between me and slit wrists,” she told Layla soon after the voices had started. It was like the outer layer of her brain had become a magnet for whatever happened to be floating by. She’d been walking toward a shopping cart outside a grocery store when an urgent whisper told her to stop. Seconds later a pick-up truck smashed the cart into a mangled mess.

Soon she was getting more signals than she could manage from just about everywhere. Sea gulls. Stop lights. Pencils. Pottery. Mars bars. Cop cars. Dead. Dying. You name it, she heard it. The noise had become a deafening blur – until she connected with cows.

It happened at the state fair ten years ago, not long after she arrived in Rising Sun. She’d been wandering through the livestock pavilion, the buzz of the crowd building toward headache. She stopped to rest found herself in the presence of a mind as simple as mud. A Guernsey named Grace. In the course of a minute, Grace taught Lori how to tune into nothing, and for the first time in months, she had herself to herself.

::

Lori’s country house sits well back from the road on the edge of a well-used pasture, with a winding gravel driveway through privet so thick you can’t see much from the street. But you’d like to – it’s a sweet place. Wide porches on all four sides. Shingle siding over a stone foundation that’s planted deep and strong. Her bedroom faces east, and on bright sunny mornings, a dozen crystal prisms put on quite a show.

But not today.

She props up to look outside where cold rain grays the sky. A couple of gentle Jerseys watch from beyond the electric fence twenty yards away, close enough to connect without getting shocked. They’ll soon be moving inside for winter. She’ll miss them.

“Hey, ladies,” she says, listening through the crackle of cow thinking, tuning in for single syllables. When you’re dealing with cows, simple works best.

Grace stares through the window, yellow tag number nine punched through one soggy ear, three metal clips stapled along the bottom edge of the other. Her vaccination record.

It’s not as easy to buy a cow as you’d think, especially when you don’t have a place to keep her. But after that mind-melding the fair, Lori couldn’t let the golden Guernsey go. She worked out a deal with the Amish farmer next door, who half understood her cow connection and agreed to let Grace stay in his herd until she passed – into dog food.

Cows in high volume milk operations live shitty lives. Forced hormones, forced marches, forced breeding, forced milking, forced dying, forced everything. Those lucky enough to work on Amish farms have it a little better, but only a little. Grace got lucky. After six months of hard labor and raising one calf – Grace had wanted to experience motherhood – Lori bought and paid for her freedom.

Grace stands by a spill of ancient boulders, her honey butter hide darkened wet along the ridge of her spine. Lori feels her own soft flesh spiked by thorns, her bare feet stuck in cold manure. She shivers, listening for something more. This time she hears those words as clear as a spell.

Spoon show

1176

2010-01-25T12:44:00.000-08:00

In her darkened bedroom, Cindy pulls Tweedside past a mountain of dirty clothes, tugging at the handle of his titanium sword case. She loses her grip and falls onto the bed in a giggly clump.

“Lessee that sword, Mr. Treedslide,” she says.

He backs away a couple of steps, looking around for signs of the cat, fighting off a sneeze. “I need to use the bathroom,” he says.

Cindy rolls over and reaches for a bedside table, where she flicks on the dimmest of nightlights. In the hazy pink glow, Tweedside watches wide-eyed as she shimmies out of her jeans without giving him a second thought. He’s still fully dressed, sweating in the hot apartment, but Cindy’s down to knee socks and a thong.

She flops to her back and hugs a towel to her naked chest, her hair spread on the pillow behind her like a dirty halo. She points toward the bathroom door with a foot. “Go pee,” she says. “And make it snappy, pappy.”

::

When Tweedside was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at the age of ten, his parents and doctor weren’t all that upset. They worried more about his attention deficits and guessed that his neat-freakishness might even come in handy. And they were right. All through adolescence, Tweedside kept the family home in tip-top shape, though he did develop a phobia about dirty toilets from having been trapped in a Porta Potty for twenty minutes. They still give him hives.

But nothing in life has prepared Tim Tweedside for the shit storm that is Cindy something’s own personal bathroom. When he slinks through the door and flips on the switch, he might as well be dropping his brain into an electric blender. His first breath sucks in the damp of litterbox cat piss laced with mildew. With the second breath, a fluorescent ceiling fixture buzzes to life revealing fake tile walls, crusty mold in the shower, a scummy mirror, and rust streaked hair gobs splattered in the sink. The dryer door gapes open, a dark wet mouth of mixed up clothes spilling to the floor beside an over-ripe litter box.

He switches on the ceiling fan, in search of fresh air. It clatters then fizzles, doing nothing to clear the smell. Hiking up his kilt, he approaches the rancid toilet, holding his sword like a crutch. He calms himself, lets his bladder loose.

Unlike men who shake after peeing, Tim Tweedside is a wiper, with a strong preference for two folded squares of paper. But the toilet paper holder in this bathroom is empty, a cardboard tube wrapped in a snarl of tissue that's covered with lint. It hasn’t been changed in months.

He leans to open the vanity door under the sink, looking for a fresh roll. A screaming snarl and hiss rip through the room as the spread of black claws flash out nowhere, tearing four white streaks into the back of his hand. He watches as the streaks slowly spread, four red rivers breaching their fragile banks.

“God damn it.” He rushes to the sink to drench his hand. Cold water blasts from the faucet, splattering across the front of his gray Utilikilt. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He stares into the filthy mirror, barely breathing.

Calming himself for action, Tweedside steps back into the bedroom, wary of the invisible cat. Cindy something is right where he left her. Toes still pointing to the bathroom door, hugging a towel, slack-jawed, snoring.

His eye zeroes in on her private parts, fleshy pale lips split by a satiny purple thong. He leans for a closer look, his manhood almost stirring beneath the folds of his kilt. There’s not a pubic hair in sight.

1131

2009-11-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

The fifty year old woman and the twelve year old girl rest easy in the hot tub, plastic tumblers of lemonade at the ready. It took months for Annie to get comfortable with skinny dipping, but it was worth the wait for Lori. Seeing the kid blossom into being with her body was a relief.

“You shouldn’t be naked,” Annie had said when they first tested the hot tub waters last winter. Lori and Cindy were stripped bare before they hopped in, but Annie insisted on panties.

“Why’s that?” said Lori.

Cindy nudged Annie’s foot underwater and said, “It’s only because your idiot father said being naked is a sin.” As far as the mother is concerned, the idiot father is fair game for everything short of actual threats. Wishing he’d break both legs falling off a cliff? Not a problem.

“He really said that?” asked Lori.

“He thinks everything is a sin,” said Cindy.

“It could be a sin,” said Annie. “And sinners go to hell.”

“That’s a story your dad made up,” said Lori. “It’s something he chooses to think.”

Annie tuned out of the conversation, but Cindy picked it up. “Why would anyone choose to think that?”

“To control these.” Lori lifted her boobs for display, one soft melon in each steady hand. “And this,” she said, standing to flash her private parts. “Jerks.”

In those early days with Lori, Cindy knew they’d found a second home. Cindy needed a friend she could trust at every turn, Annie needed an adult who’d roll with her anxious ways. And while the three girls still have plenty of fun together, it’s Annie and Lori who connect most clearly. Especially now that Cindy has her sights so set on getting laid.

::

On this last Saturday night in October, Annie Alexander strips in an ritual of feminist defiance she doesn’t quite understand. It’s a weekend treat, this bare-naked hot-tubbing. A steamy séance of sorts, filled with more mystery than most people know in a lifetime.
“I have some magic spoons,” says Lori, sliding down in the water to her chin. She slips all the way under, soaking up the heat for the longest time, then resurfaces, eager for that instant chill of a hot face meeting cold night air.

“I saw a shooting star,” says Annie.

“Did you make a wish?”

Annie goes quiet for awhile, tickling her toes in a strong water jet.

“Nice in here,” says Lori.

“What do they do?” says Annie.

“What do who do?

“The magic spoons.”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Do they make spells?”

“Do they make spells?” Lori brightens as she thinks through the question. “That’s exactly what they do, Annie. They make spells! In fact, they spelled dog last night. DOG. Right there on the table.” She nods toward the house, where soft yellow light spills through the kitchen curtains. Above, the cleared sky is a sparkly black hole of mystery stretching all the way back to the beginning of everything. Out here in farm country, it’s dark enough at night to see heaven itself if you look hard enough.

1050

2009-09-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Things like no spoon happen all the time to Lori Leigh, and most of them make even less sense. To keep the chaos in her head under of control, she evolved early into a creature of hard-edged habits. “How you spend your time is how you spend your life,” she says. “And there’s a lot I want to squeeze in.” On Fridays, what Lori squeezes in is pure indulgence. She spends those leisurely mornings in bed without a shred of guilt, setting aside her afternoons for hiking in Fair Hill or junk shopping, depending on the weather. Today’s dreary drizzle means shopping for sure.

Despite her years of frequenting flea markets and antique malls, Lori’s home is order incarnate. Cluttered houses breed cluttered minds, that’s her view anyway, which can be a problem when you’re in the business of reading them.

It’s not that her house is empty, it’s just organized to a fault. Crystal balls lined up on the mantle, small to large, left to right. Candles. Cow collectibles. Tea towels. Feathers. Everything properly in it’s place, and then some. These days, whenever she gets something new, she unloads something old, especially if the incoming something is large. Last June she bought a used hot tub, which prompted the sale of a chest of drawers. Lori Leigh is a zero sum gamer in the big stuff department.

As a barrier to indiscriminate purchasing, Lori leaves her purse in her car when she’s out on the junk circuit, carrying only one five dollar bill in her pocket. If she happens across something more expensive that wants to be bought, she’ll slow walk back to her parking spot, which often breaks the spell. And she never negotiates for anything. Stuff names it’s own price. Once she almost came home with a pink Cadillac. It belonged to a Mary Kay distributor who had run out of friends to sell cosmetics to. Lori was driving through the neighborhood when she felt the car calling, so she stopped and knocked on the door. The well-kept woman greeted Lori like a vulture, ready to sell her a basket of make-up and body wash, but Lori got straight to the point.

“You’re thinking of selling that Cadillac?”

The woman didn’t flinch. “What’ll you give for it?”

“Four hundred.” That’s what the car said. Not a penny more.

“You’re crazy.” The woman was thinking twenty times that amount.

“Okay then,” said Lori. “But you’re about to blow that engine.”

::

When it comes to local junk, the most desirable goods can be found on the outskirts of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where second-hand shops and antique stores line both sides of a busy highway. Lori drives thirty miles to get there, but that’s nothing in farm country. Plus, some of that junk is pure magic. Her friends says it’s the Amish influence, but Lori credits the psychokinetic force of being located exactly forty degrees north latitude.

Whatever the reason, her favorite haunt is the South Lancaster Antique Mall, a chaotic sprawl of booths and tables in an old furniture store. She pulls up in her crusty Ford truck, choosing a parking space far from the bargaining crowd. A few minutes later she steps through big double doors in her camel cape and red beret, igniting a psychic storm that lights up the place. People take notice when Lorelei Leigh walks into anything.

Most of the vendors know her, and usually try to chat her up. If they can hold her attention long enough, there’s a chance she’ll connect with something that insists on being bought. But with Halloween on the horizon, the market’s buzzing with too much energy and there’s nothing to be gained from slowing her down. Rubber masks. Pumpkins. Bags of candy. Witches’ brooms. Plus all the regular stuff that doesn’t depend on seasonal sizzle.

She passes a table full of Scottish collectibles, her interest piqued by the whine of bagpipes from a CD player. She studies the line-up of knives and daggers spread in front of a menacing man in a black leather vest. He points a fist in her direction, the word CHOP spelled out on his fingers. A chill ripples down her neck as she meets his eyes. She moves quickly away to the next table, and the next, row after row, listening for a tug through the din of the day.
Near the back of the building, the crowd thins and the space grows quiet enough for Lori to feel a tickle at the bottom of her brain.

Spoon spot

It’s easy enough to tell what’s what in the shadowy world Lori inhabits, and this tickle is the very same one she felt this morning. That cow again, reaching out across thirty miles of rolling hills. When it comes to cow ESP, a few miles away is the same as a few feet away, and sometimes even better.

She drifts toward a small folding table with kitchen utensils. The seller is a tiny old woman she hasn’t seen before. Anyone would remember those gray eyes, sparkling under a pure white pageboy. That translucent skin. That glow.

“I’m looking for spoons,” says Lori.

“Knew that,” says the woman, tucking a handkerchief into the pocket of her overalls. Glittery glimmers of nothing sprinkle through her smile.

“Really?”

“Got that look about you.” She winks, then digs up a small cardboard box from out of nowhere. It’s filled with brightly polished silver spoons, each engraved with a separate letter. A tiny salt spoon. A sugar spoon. Baby spoons. Soup spoons. Ice cream spoons. Serving spoons. Grapefruit spoons. Even a ladle.

“That’s a lot of spoons.”

“All you need.”

Lori picks out a soup spoon with the letter D, the rush of old silver flowing through her hands. She imagines the curve of the bowl on her tongue, sliding smooth past her teeth. She chooses a long-handled tea spoon with letter O, shifting her gaze from the woman to the spoon and back again. She returns the spoons to the box, feeling the pull to purchase.

“How much?”

“Five dollars,” says the old woman.

“Each?”

“All.”

Lori picks up another spoon, a slotted serving spoon with the letter G.

“There must be two dozen spoons here.”

The woman holds up a finger, shushing to keep Lori quiet. Her thin lips take on the hint of a whispery smile.

“There is no spoon.”

::

Some people think talking about paranormal weirdness helps to make sense of it, but not Lori. Better to let strangeness speak for itself. So when the old lady quotes that line from The Matrix, Lori knows enough to leave it alone. She hands the woman five dollars, tucks the box under her arm, and wanders off to other booths. When she reaches the far corner of the building, she turns and backtracks, heading for the exit. The white-haired woman and her table of kitchen junk have vanished.

1005

2009-08-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

Things like no spoon happen all the time to Lori Leigh, and most of them make even less sense. To keep the chaos in her head under of control, she evolved early into a creature of hard-edged habits. “How you spend your time is how you spend your life,” she says. “And there’s a lot I want to squeeze in.” On Fridays, what Lori squeezes in is pure indulgence. She spends those leisurely mornings in bed without a shred of guilt, then sets aside her afternoons for hiking in Fair Hill or junk shopping, depending on the weather. Today’s dreary drizzle means shopping for sure.

Despite her years of hitting flea markets and antique malls, Lori’s home is order incarnate. Cluttered houses breed cluttered minds, that’s her view anyway, which can be a problem when you’re in the business of reading them.

It’s not that her house is empty, it’s just organized to a fault. Crystal balls lined up in descending size on the mantle. Candles. Cow collectibles. Tea towels. Feathers. Everything properly in it’s place, and then some. These days, whenever she gets something new, she unloads something old, especially if the incoming something is large. Last year she bought a used hot tub, which prompted the sale of a chest of drawers. Lori Leigh is a zero sum gamer in the big stuff department.

As a barrier to indiscriminate purchasing, Lori leaves her purse in her car when she’s out on the junk circuit, carrying only one five dollar bill in her pocket. If she happens across something more expensive that wants to be bought, she’ll slow walk back to her parking spot, which often breaks the spell. And she never negotiates for anything. Stuff names it’s own price. Once she almost came home with a pink Cadillac. It belonged to a Mary Kay distributor who had run out of friends to sell cosmetics to. Lori was driving through the neighborhood when she felt the car calling, so she stopped and knocked on the door. The well-kept woman greeted Lori like a vulture, ready to sell her a basket of make-up and body wash, but Lori got straight to the point.

“You’re thinking of selling that Cadillac?”

The woman didn’t flinch. “What’ll you give for it?”

“Four hundred.” That’s what the car said. Not a penny more.

“You’re crazy.” The woman was thinking twenty times that amount.

“Okay then,” said Lori. “But you’re about to blow that engine.”

::

When it comes to local junk, the most desirable goods can be found on the outskirts of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where second-hand shops and antique stores line both sides of a busy highway. Lori drives thirty miles to get there, but that’s nothing in farm country. Plus, some of the stuff is pure magic. Her friends says it’s the crazy Amish influence, but Lori credits the psychokinetic force of being located exactly forty degrees north latitude.

Whatever the reason, Lori’s favorite haunt is the South Lancaster Antique Mall, a chaotic sprawl of booths and tables in an old furniture store. She pulls up in her crusty Ford truck, choosing a parking space far from the harried crowd. A few minutes later she steps through big double doors in her camel cape and red beret, igniting a psychic sizzle that almost lights up the place. People take notice when Lorelei Leigh walks into anything.

Most of the vendors know her, and usually try to chat her up. If they can hold her attention long enough, there’s a chance she’ll connect with something that insists on being bought. But with fall festivals already underway, the market’s buzzing with too much energy and there’s nothing to be gained from slowing her down. Rusted tools. Pumpkins. Jars of honey. Quilts. Bird houses. Barbies, books, bricks, and brooms. She steps up to each busy table, listening for a tug through the din. No sale.

Near the back of the building, the crowd thins and the space grows quiet enough for Lori to feel a tickle at the bottom of her brain.

It’s easy enough to tell what’s what in the shadowy world Lori inhabits, and this tickle is the very same one she heard this morning. That cow again, reaching out across thirty miles of rolling hills. When it comes to cow ESP, a few miles away is the same as a few feet away, and sometimes even better. Their psychic energy knows no bounds.

Lori drifts toward a folding table loaded with kitchen utensils. The seller is a tiny old woman in overalls she hasn’t seen before. Lori would remember those gray eyes, sparkling under a pure white pageboy.

“I’m looking for spoons,” says Lori.

“Knew that,” says the woman, taking a handkerchief from a pocket, wiping her hands.

“Really?”

“Got that look about you.” She winks, then turns and digs up a small wooden box from out of nowhere. It’s filled with silver spoons. Tiny salt spoons. Sugar spoons. Baby spoons. Long tea spoons. Longer ice cream spoons. Serving spoons. Grapefruit spoons. Soup spoons.

“That’s a lot of spoons.”

“All you need.”

Lori picks out a heavy ladle and studies it close, the rush of silver current flowing through her hands. The finial on the handle is engraved with a cow’s head. She chooses another spoon. They’re all the same pattern. Lori shifts her gaze from the woman to the spoons and back again. She returns the spoons to their box, feeling the familiar pull to purchase.

“How much?”

“Five dollars,” says the old woman.

“Each?”

“All.”

“There must be twenty spoons here.”

The woman holds up a finger like she’s thinking, or maybe shushing to keep Lori quiet. Her thin lips take on the hint of a whispery smile.

“There is no spoon.”

::

Some people think talking about paranormal weirdness helps to make sense of it, but not Lori. Words get in her way, just like with cows. Better to let strangeness speak for itself. So when the old lady quotes that line from The Matrix, Lori knows enough to leave it alone. She thanks the woman and wanders off to other booths, a pile of fancy spoons spilled inside her pocket. When she reaches the far corner of the building, she turns and backtracks, heading for the exit. The white-haired woman and her kitchen junk have vanished. Her table too.

966

2009-08-08T17:58:00.001-07:00

Lori’s house sits well back from the road on the edge of a well-used pasture, with a curvy gravel driveway and privet so thick you can’t see much from the street. But you’d like to – it’s a sweet place. Protected by wide porches on all sides, the shake-shingle siding and fieldstone foundation have stood the test of time.

Her bedroom faces east, and on bright sunny mornings, it puts on quite a show. Clusters of crystals hang at the window to catch the rays, spilling a hundred rainbows across the yellow walls with every turn.

But not today.

She props up to look outside where cold rain grays the sky. A couple of gentle Jerseys watch from beyond the electric fence twenty yards away, close enough to connect without getting shocked. They’ll soon be moving inside for the winter. She’ll miss them.

“Hey girls,” says Lori. Or maybe she thinks it. Hard to say.

She listens for an echo in the psychic crackle, tuning in for short words. When you’re dealing with cows, things are best kept simple. Especially names. The animals are unfazed by ego. Cow suits them fine.

One of the Jerseys stares through the window at Lori, yellow tag number nine punched through one ear, three metal clips stapled along the bottom edge of the other.

Lori flashes on an image of herself spiked with safety pins, feet in cold mud. She closes her eyes and drifts, sifting for silent sounds.

No spoon

948

2009-08-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

“I didna kill her,” says Tweedside.

The room goes quiet.

“Maybe ye should’ve.” It’s a voice from the hallway. Jock Shaw. How he sneaked in so quietly with all that stuff hanging from his sheriff belt is a mystery. He walks up to where Tweedside sits frozen on his throne.

“I am here to tell you the hard truth, son. The truth that darkies are the source of what’s wrong in this world.” Pacing like a preacher, he turns to Donny Roy. “Why else would good god in heaven call them darkies?” Then back to Tweedside. “They’re all the same, lad. All the same. They’re the opposite of light. They’re dark. Dark skin. Dark hair. Dark hearts. And they’re out to take what rightfully belongs to white Christian men and their women.”

He pauses, runs a ham of hand across his slick head.

“And you, Mr. Tweedside. How can ye stand by and let that raghead runt determine your professional fate? Tis not right. Darkies should be moppin’ your floors, not decidin’ your salary.”

..........................

Truth is stranger than fiction.

936

2009-08-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

“You’ve gone too far, Tim Tweedside.” The worn down wife spoke quiet, clearing dishes from the picnic table. The husband, worn as well, stood still as a stump beside their ancient Weber grill, certain he shouldn’t respond.

“Did you hear me?”

“What are you saying?” He mumbled, holding the words back, not looking, knowing what he would see: Ricky Kay Roberts, mad as hell, biting her invisible lips and wringing those big-knuckled hands.

“I’m saying this head-shaving business is the last straw. I’m saying I want you out of my house. I found you a place and I want you to leave. Today. I put down a deposit.”

Tisoped

“You put down a deposit?”

“You used to be so normal.” Kay sniffed back the threat of tears. “I don’t know what happened. And I don’t even care anymore. Whatever you’re going through, it’s too much for me.”

For the record, Tim Tweedside never used to be so normal. Born thirty-one years ago on with a hard case of attention deficit, he’s always been a loose thread in the fabric of life. He powered his way through elementary school, earning giggles from his classmates and frustrated sighs from his teachers. In high school, he topped out at five-five, a short stack of nervous jitters that left him floating well outside the inner circles. His family’s unexpected move from Baltimore at the end of his senior year gave him the brief reprieve he needed to make a fresh start, find his first girlfriend, and prove his manhood by getting her pregnant.