Nathan Bellamy hunched over a cardboard box on the floor of his bedroom closet. He sorted through a stack of yellowed papers: insurance policies for cars long sold; records of mortgage payments that Loraine filed away during their first years of marriage. They’d lived in the house on a quiet street in Pacific Grove for more than four decades. Nathan felt her spirit in every room that he’d cleaned out, even in the musty closet with its dark corners filled with old shoes and empty suitcases.
Nietzsche’s cutting quote, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you,” is by now a redundancy. And so, when I became a San Francisco probation officer, I prepared myself to keep company with the abyss. But I had not quite realized how extensive the abyss was. I saw it in the eyes of the senior probation officers, so exhausted by massive caseloads that they were counting the months to retirement. I saw it in the faces of deputy jailors, disaffected shift workers who were all but deaf to the human clamor of the cell ranges. And, of course, I saw it in my clientele: hollow-cheeked crack heads, asocial gang bangers, vagrants with thousand mile stares. But at least the abyss could be mellow where probationers were concerned. It was mellow in the case of Joseph Shepherd, a middle-age drug peddler on probation for choking his girlfriend. Entering my office for his intake interview, he glanced at the tower of case files on my desk and chuckled. “I know you have it rough,” he remarked in a voice that could be poured over waffles. “So I plan to make it easy on you, sir.” He smiled with the insular charm of a sociopath then shook my hand with a python grip. He seemed to be a man of elemental strength—a brawn with a life of its own—yet his broad open face and puppy dog eyes set me completely at ease.
Gus is barking his tiny brown head off, Mr. Thomas must be near. Gus came along four years ago, a pint-sized wolf in mongrel clothes. I glance down at my flour-dusted trousers and open the door a crack to greet Mr. Thomas. But I see it’s not Mr. Thomas, but a stranger. I quickly slam the door, hoping that he hasn’t seen me. There is a violent crashing sound as the mail is forced through the letterbox. Gus chokes himself trying to grab the hand, but he’s too late. I finally let him go and he gives me an angry scowl. I probably shouldn’t have slammed the door, but you never know, better safe. Lock the door. Check. Locked? Locked. Locked? Locked. Final check: locked? Locked. It’s locked.
SHE HAD ONCE BEEN A SHOW PONY, sleek of shank and withers. Now she walked the pool deck, eyes forward and a neutral look on her face. I watched her for a moment and noticed that her head described a perfectly level line as she strode along, barefoot and bikini-clad.
A laptop illuminates the otherwise darkened room. On the screen is a website that she is all too familiar with, the one that has been taunting her for months. A new photo has been uploaded within the past couple of hours. She pulls out a chair but chooses not to sit – the surfaces are damp and the whole apartment smells of bleach and lemon.
The website is seemingly old fashioned by design. Page backgrounds are dark with a watermark logo. Fonts are bright and dated. Items jerk around the page whenever a window is resized or moved. An animated under construction image rotates and hovers in view at all times.
The homepage shows fourteen captionless photographs. The image quality is poor and they appear to be scanned copies of original prints. Each image shows a minor celebrity in a state of undress, always draped across an object or a piece of furniture. The pictures are unflattering and raw. The first image shows a reality star splayed across a four poster bed. The next is an ex-soap star lying face down into a giant beanbag. A television presenter slumps backwards over a pile of cardboard boxes.
And so on.
Leaning against the grimy brick Mel scuffed her feet on the flags. She flicked a fag end into a puddle of scummy rain water. Her fingers quivered and shook, fiddling and picking at the little gold clasp on her shoulder bag. She sniffed, wiped the back of her hand across her nose. She needed a fix but couldn’t have one yet, she needed to keep her wits about her. She hated being out on the street, well of course she did but it was Saturday and so there was no choice.
First rule of working with Brad Blackwood: improvise.
Second: get into your character’s skin.
Both hard to pull off–Brad Blackwood never shoots light flicks. Brad says, the plot should write itself. If so, the plot is one shitty writer. Anyway, Brad doesn’t write screenplays, so maybe it’s just an excuse.
Continue reading “Counting Feathers of Life by Sergei Walnisty”
Gerald Xavier Kilmer placed his cell phone on the corner of his walnut desk, breathed deeply, exhaled, looked down from his fourth story window, and saw for the second time that day, what he had experienced more than thirty-five years earlier. Kilmer turned, his eyes followed the long corridor connecting other executive offices, then he turned toward the window again. When he looked down, it was gone.
Continue reading “A Place for Those Without a Place by Thomas Elson”
Ask any shrink or probation officer, “What is the most troubling kind of client?” You will hear the same answer every time: stalkers. Not the run-of-the-mill stalker—the jilted boyfriend type—but the schizo who obeys no authority save the voice inside his head. Lecture him, he will not listen. Warn him, he will not be impressed. Put him in jail and when he gets out he is likely to stalk you.
Prod Herling believed he had been followed for weeks or months, never once seeing what he thought was there. But his history came with repeated sensations.
