“Hey, Beth, you got a minute? I need your advice.”
“Greg, not really, however, I’ll always make time for a call from my ex-husband and the father of our children. First of all, you should move out of that horribly dangerous Oak Park place where you have domiciled my children. Apparently, the law enforcement thugs have a year-round open season on black people in Sacramento.”
Continue reading “The Talk Part Three – Driving While Black by Frederick K Foote”
He was a black man.
African-American.
“Yo Nigga! to his friends but these days he didn’t have any.
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Elmer Fudd’s laugh speeded up ten-thousand times comes close to describing the sound of a woodpecker beaking the holy hell out of a metal chimney cap. A pneumatic “uh-huh-huh-huh-huh,” with a little “phu-bub-buh-tuth,” thrown in for variety, gives you the soul of the thing. Wikipedia calls this behaviour drumming.
Continue reading “The Woodpecker Telegraph System by Leila Allison”
We live in Gino’s Café, Beaufort South Carolina, Minerva and I. Here’s the reason why I called her that, before you start a-wondering too: the moment she came out of me, she already had this face like she’s thinking about something all the time, so Gino said to call her Minerva – ‘Like the goddess of Wisdom,’ he says – and I did. It’s not like there was anyone else around to offer me a different name.
Peter crouched in front of the attic window and gazed down on old man Mueller’s cornfield. The plow, unhitched beyond the stalks, turned north like he meant to continue but got interrupted. Peter looked toward the barn, no sign of Mueller’s horse and buggy. The Amish and Mennonite neighbors, with their peculiar ways kept to themselves. Mueller only talked to his pa when he accused Rufus of killing his chickens, or a year ago, the day his brother’s mind broke when Gabe went screaming from the veranda twisting his ears as he ran into Muller’s cornfield. That day Mueller shot out of the house, the top of his unsnapped overalls flapping as he sprinted after Gabe, Mueller’s wife and five children dashed onto the porch, the boys still in their pajamas.
Sometimes investigative reporters come sniffing around for news of Lionel Fetlar. They’ve heard he’s living on the south coast now, a town that remains resolutely unfashionable while those nearby have undergone a modest transformation following the influx of the affectedly on trend from that London.
The seed was sown when Riley joined the amateur dramatics group. He had played a couple of minor roles, first in a Sheridan play then in a Dickens, when the email arrived from the am-dram group’s administrator. It was forwarded from a film company needing extras for a few days filming in the local market town. He arrived at the crew’s temporary encampment in the central car park and was told he would be playing a policeman. He hadn’t worn a uniform since he’d been a scout and was surprised by the feeling of empowerment it gave him. The helmet, the collapsible truncheon, the mock pepper spray, it was a new dawn, he felt marvellous, confident. He was somebody, he was a policeman.
A chunk of ash-blonde hair, not yet white like the rest, is matted to Willa’s perspiring forehead. Her body is pasted to the damp sheet that’s pulled off the bottom corners of the sofa-sleeper, eliminating the soft barrier between her bare calves and the rough mattress—she must have been thrashing in her sleep again. She does that when she travels. Her husband, Riley, is standing over her. “There’s a diner down the road. I’m going for fresh coffee,” he says, banging his elbow as he turns in the narrow walkway of the motorhome. “Don’t feed the goat,” he yells, slamming the door behind him. It sticks.
The others fled from the night in their own ways, and, though she could guess, Carrie never knew what they saw. Only one thing was sure in her night, and that was the road. Once she’d crunched them to a halt, Ivan was out on the red earth of the roadside, clutching his head and rolling from side-to-side. Ellie fell out of the front passenger seat and followed Ivan’s movements with her shoulders. Jacob stayed slumped in the back looking a shade of yellow that, Carrie felt, suited him.
Those women and his wife entered the coffee house and sat down. The girls’ day out shopping always ended at Yeoli’s. It was a gentrified coffee house on Banks Ave. It used to be a rundown storage facility. This was a smallish city, an old town. Pete sat outside Yeoli’s in his pickup truck, not directly in front, but down a short distance a little past the red brick trim. His wife couldn’t see him through the front glass.
Continue reading “The Great God Cernunnos by Tom Chambless – Adult Content!”
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